[legend start]
This is emphasis.
"This is internal spoken dialogue." [refers to conversations had within a Yurei's mind – don't worry, you'll pick it up quick!]
This is internal non-spoken dialogue. [refers to "thoughts" that are not the POV character's thoughts, such as certain unnatural and otherworldly influences]
This is written text within the world, whether remembered or being read by a character
This is personal thoughts and very short flashbacks.
… [ellipsis break] = indicates a longer time lapse; can be further in the future or in the past, but never a flashback
. [full stop break] = indicates a shorter time lapse up to a few hours or a POV change or a full-scene flashback or dream sequence
[legend end]
...
Kaisuki couldn't tell if it was another memory that wasn't her own or just a dream that she didn't want to be lucid for, but she knew the eyes she was gazing through weren't her own. The person she watched the perspective of was far taller, more muscular, and clearly more adult-proportioned than the tween herself. Long legs that weren't her own, weighed down with heavy, metal-plated boots, travelled noisily through dense forestry that seemed very familiar but was unrecognizable. She couldn't control where her gaze was directed and found herself scanning the darkness carefully, her night vision strangely good compared to normal.
"Aye, 'cause the forty-fourt' training grounds are totally t'is fuckin' quiet in the middle o' t'e night. It's not sketchy as fuck, nope, not at all." The thought echoed in her head, a gravelly voice that was deeper than Kaisuki's own with a thick accent that she'd never heard before.
The person who wasn't Kaisuki reached the top of a cliff's ledge that the Yurei hadn't realized she'd been approaching, and her eyes focused on a fixed spot in the valley of forested darkness below. Her vision adjusted in a way her real eyes definitely didn't and she found herself gazing intently at a shadowy building hiding amongst the trees. It was hard to tell its purpose – all Kaisuki could really tell was that it was made of concrete and had large doors that looked to be made of metal. Safe houses, maybe, from a long time ago?
The person who's eyes she was gazing through didn't seem concerned with the lack of knowledge as she straightened up after mapping a path to it with her eyes. Then, she looked down at her feet as she stepped off the ledge of the cliff and, for just a single terrifying second, her vision was swallowed by darkness.
In an instant, the scene changed. It was slightly lighter thanks to dim, exposed lightbulbs on the ceiling but things were moving a bit too fast for Kaisuki to process in the darkness. She saw a splatter of fluid burst seemingly right in front of her, dark droplets hitting her face, her arms, her chest. Her body shifted but Kaisuki was still trying to get a grasp of where her limbs were.
She wasn't sure what was going on – though she had a sickening feeling. Was it a good thing, what this person was doing? Were they committing acts of evil or good? Was this more than a just a foreboding dream after all? Did it already happen? No, surely she would've realized it... right? Pressure hit her elbow and she felt something "pop" next to her. Right away she could hear another loud splatter of dark liquid hitting the walls and other surfaces. Somewhere far away, her hand grabbed something that felt like hair and pulled hard and she felt something at the end crumble in a way she didn't have the words to properly describe.
Her gaze focused on a face, for just a moment, and Kaisuki was positive she recognized them, but in a moment the memory disappeared and she couldn't remember what they had looked like or who she had realized they were. Was it a dream after all if she thought she was seeing someone she knew...? Or did she actually recognize them and was that why she couldn't remember anymore? If it was a memory it wasn't hers, obviously, but she'd had flashbacks to events from Saeka's life during her sleep before, especially for the first couple of years.
Things seemed to be speeding up and slowing down in jumps until the movement came to a grinding halt. Slowly, things came into focus and Kaisuki was able to discern what had happened... and it was exactly what she'd been afraid it would be. It was strange to experience horror, panic, and dread, yet feel no response from her own body within the "dream". There was an eerie calm all around her. No one was left. Her gaze skirted over what she could now see was a sea of mutilated corpses and gore. It was so dark that, though the liquid on the floor looked black, she knew it had to be blood.
There's so much... oh gods...
She'd only seen carnage similar to that once and it had been after the murder of her family at the hands of the unruly spirit she hosted, Saeka. However, the body she was experiencing wasn't Saeka's body and the style of killing didn't match with that spirit's usual methods. Who was this? Was this a premonition? Was she about to release a new spirit on Konoha? Or had the contents of the dream already happened...?
The panic she was feeling was beginning to ebb into the body she was experiencing. She could feel her heart rate increasing nearly in time with her fear levels, but the dream didn't seem to be changing.
The person she was experiencing turned and swung without any warning, blasting out a ball of white energy from her knuckles. She had no way of knowing if the person who had done had felt it, but to Kaisuki it was as if her skin had been shredded to the bone by a cheese grater. Internally she howled in pain, her whole body responding to it with blistering nerve pain that seemed to get worse with every second. She was confused at what had happened, but the person who's body she was experiencing wasn't responding to the injury at all. Either they were used to the pain or they didn't feel it at all, even though the damage was visible even to the Yurei's limited perspective
There was a growing coldness in the pitch black corner she found herself staring into. The pain was almost pushed to the background, her throat tightening and a chill rising up her spine. She wasn't sure if she was having these reactions to the memory or if these bodily experiences were actually what this person had felt. She wanted to wake up. The coldness was building and she felt herself move back, felt her fist tighten, blood squelching between fingers. Warmth was filling her chest suddenly and she wasn't sure where it was coming from at first... but as it turned into a searing heat like a bonfire inside her torso, she understood it had to be Saeka's fiery chakra.
Saeka had been there too? Then this isa recent memory, right? It has to be! Her own fear and dread was only amplified by what she was feeling through the memory from Saeka. A silhouette of a person stepped out of the shadows, their lean frame a pale shadow against the mass of inky blackness that seemed to be coming to life behind them. They stepped into a patch of light just long enough for Kaisuki to catch that they had yellow eyes, and a moment later the person she was watching – evidently now Saeka - started running, a fiery blaze of red chakra bursting out from around them.
The heat of Saeka's chakra felt like being on the surface of the sun at times but even that didn't compare to the awful weight of the girl's emotions. Her fear was raw and jagged and it felt like showering in broken glass; the waves of renewed terror that came with every half-formed flashback that the dead girl's mind conjured were like being hit over the head with a bag of bricks – even when Kaisuki was only re-experiencing a memory in her sleep. Saeka was running unbelievably fast, dodging and weaving through trees and fauna, crying out loud in a panic. Kaisuki was barely holding on to what was even going on but she could hear that unknown voice from before calling out to Saeka, trying to calm her.
"Sae... Saeka, it's okay, it's... here, I promise... let anyt'ing... can't hurt ye, they won't... you're safe."
.
Her visual of the scene fractured and shattered before her eyes. The Yurei blinked a few times, left alone in familiar, frigid darkness but finally having escaped from the heat and emotion and pain of that memory. Kaisuki looked down at herself, wary. Her body seemed to be back to itself and she had control again, so she knew she wasn't in the memory anymore. Now she was just lost somewhere in her subconscious, or maybe a shared part of the internal world she shared with the spirit or spirits she hosted.
She frowned. Where did they go after that memory? When did that even happen? Is Saeka going to be...?
As if on cue, the deceptively fragile-looking girl stepped out of the shadows a little to her left. She seemed angry somehow. It was hard for her to get a read on Saeka's emotions and Kaisuki immediately felt bad. She always felt like Saeka was mad at her and that she was being a terrible "Host" for the spirit. It wasn't like she'd been looking for doorways that didn't belong to her for fun. She had been asleep.
Whatever that even meansfor a Yurei.
Saeka's sucked her teeth awkwardly, offering a tense nod in greeting, and both of them slowly relaxed. Everything had been so weird between them for so long, it seemed impossible for any interaction to not somehow become awkward. "You're late, Kaisuki," the young spirit finally said. "Your alarm's been going off for forty-five minutes and Mr. Midori is banging on the door."
Kaisuki's eyes widened, "Oh, crap," she cursed, staring upward and concentrating on sending herself to the surface. "Shit, fuck, fuck, no, no no no no..."
The sound of the alarm reached her and, a split second later, it was as unbearably loud as it would've been if she'd been sleeping on the surface like she was supposed to instead of sinking like a ship's anchor into her subconscious. She forced her eyes open, ignoring the weight in her limbs as her mind reconnected with her body and pushed herself up, grunting as she did. Then she was falling to the floor beside her futon as she tripped on her blankets almost immediately.
She slammed her fist down on her alarm clock with a crunch that she didn't bother to look back at and ran to the door. Her heart was racing even though the distance wasn't far at all. She threw the door open and found herself, as she had expected, face to face with her pregnant landlady's exhausted-to-the-point-of-manic-rage husband.
"Kaisuki," Mr. Midori greeted through gritted teeth. "I have been knocking on your door every couple of hours since 11 last night."
Her gut dropped. She'd gone to bed at 9 so she would be able to get up early. "O-oh, uh-oh, oh, oh gods, I'm really sorry, I'm sorry, was I-...?"
"Screaming in your sleep? Yea. So I came up and knocked until you stopped – which took about twenty minutes, by the way. An hour later, same thing. Three hours after that, same thing! This last thirty minutes I've just been trying to get you to shut your damn alarm off so my wife can rest! She's been up all night! Kid, I get you have issues sleeping but that doesn't make it okay to down a bottle of pills to get through the night."
"I-I didn't, I... I don't take sleeping-..."
"If you can't get your little harlot to be quiet through the night, I'm sorry but you're gonna have to find a new arrangement," he told her before she could formulate a reply. Her spine was shriveling up and she wanted to disappear. "Figure it out with the Hokage, I don't care, you can't stay here if... no. That's-That's just it. You can't stay here." He let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagging, and reiterated one last time. "You can't stay here. I have a baby on the way and after the last week my wife is so stressed that... I just can't do this, Kaisuki. I want you out before... tonight. Before tonight. I can't do this another night."
Kaisuki was frozen in place during his tirade. She could feel Saeka's agitation rise in vicious increments that came as a burning heat that spread through her. "Saeka, pleasedon't," she pleaded, frustrated and upset. In an instant, before the man before her had a chance to see the flickers of Saeka's chakra under her skin or catch the rage in a shift of her expression, she plastered an understanding smile on her face and bobbed her head.
"I'm sorry!" She said, her voice strained and she could see the man realize that Saeka was angry through one of the tells that she knew was showing, because that damn spirit couldn't just keep her emotional reactions inside Kaisuki's head. "I know your wife is pregnant, I've been trying but I understand that it's not enough and for that I'm really sorry. Please tell your wife I'm very thankful for her allowing me to be here even for just the past week. I pray she has a safe delivery."
"Uh, y-yea," the husband, Mr. Midori, shifted his weight back, looking ready to run. He very clearly wanted that to be the end of the conversation so he could leave before Saeka went off on him.
Kaisuki continued, never allowing the fact that she, the Yurei herself, wanted nothing more than to drop to the floor and cry and beg and plead to be allowed one more chance to not screw up. How did this keep happening? Why didn't anything ever seem to change? It'd been years, and yet...
"I'm rejoining the ranks of Shinobi officially as of today and I'm going to be meeting with my team this morning. I don't know how long it'll take, but if you'd be willing to accommodate me, as soon as I'm done with that meeting, I'll come back and get all my stuff and go, without spending the night. If it's late I'll be sure to be really quiet and leave before you wake up, you'll never even know I came back." She took one last shuddering breath, shaky because she was on the verge of tears, and concluded. "Thanks again for everything."
Mr. Midori clenched his teeth, but nodded stiffly. "That's fair. Goodbye, Kaisuki. I'll put something in your mailbox for you to sign and leave behind when you go." Without waiting for her to reply, he turned and race-walked back the way he'd come, down the flight of stairs to the apartment below her.
She slowly closed the door and took a step back from it before sinking to her knees. Her eyes filled with tears that quickly overflowed and spilled down her cheeks to her trembling chin. The anger she had been feeling from Saeka had evaporated. Kaisuki wasn't sure when or where the girl had gone to – only that she was hiding for now. The Yurei pushed herself over to a wall and pulled her knees up to her chest, curling up tighter and tighter, until she couldn't take it anymore and the tension in her chest forced a sob up.
She buried her face in her hands and she wanted to cry for as long as the tears flowed.
"Kaisuki, you're going to be really late." Saeka's voice sounded different when she spoke. Evidently, she hadn't left after all. Kaisuki couldn't help but curl up more, her fists clenched tightly, wishing Saeka was outside of her so she could slap her.
This is so fucking tiring. She felt emotionally drained but not physically tired. She just wanted to go lay in bed for the rest of the day but … even if she didn't have a meeting with her new team, she still had to visit the Hokage about her fresh eviction. She couldn't just hide away forever.
She had things to do today that couldn't be put off or rescheduled, so she pushed herself to her feet and quickly rushed around the house, putting things back in the boxes she hadn't finished unpacking as she went about gathering what she would need to meet up with her team assignment. If she kept moving, she'd have no time for brooding, right? She knew she was joining Naruto's team, which was a relief as well as a source of anxiety. Sasuke was also on that team. So was Sakura.
Sakura hadn't ever been especially mean to Kaisuki on her own, but... what little history they had, it wasn't very positive. She grabbed her kunai belt and scarf off the rickety table she'd left them on, draping the aged purple fabric around her neck while she fastened the belt on her way out the door. She didn't bother locking it, or closing the windows. Honestly, she could only hope that her landlord wouldn't evict her things onto the side of the road while she wasn't there. It wouldn't be the first time.
As she walked down the patio to ground floor, she mucked around with her belt, trying to arrange it comfortably and correctly. Saeka stayed very quiet. Perhaps uncharacteristically quiet. She seemed upset, but not in the usual way and not as … loudly as usual. Did she withdraw to conceal her temper of her own accord, as opposed to just because Kaisuki had asked? Was it maturing? Or was it something else? Was it something Kaisuki had done?
"A bit of everything, I think," the spirit softly responded to Kaisuki's unfiltered and conspicuous thoughts. Kaisuki felt her heart stutter, but Saeka didn't say anymore and Kaisuki soon felt her presence ebb away into the background again. She wasn't sure if she ought to be feeling guilty or not but regardless, she felt guilty. She quietly sighed to herself as she finally affixed her belt properly. It was new and her waist was between two of the sizes. She'd have to fix it next chance she got.
Picking up the pace to the point of nearly running, Kaisuki made her way down the streets while moving her scarf to its usual place around her hips. People were just starting to come out of the woodwork of their homes, many eyeballing her as she passed. She was already more than fifteen minutes late and she felt like an idiot. Why had she slept so deeply? She'd taken so many precautions to make sure she woke up on time!
She spotted a blonde head up the road, walking the opposite direction of her. It looked like Naruto and Kakashi had gotten tired of waiting and decided to give up waiting for her. Maybe she was later than she'd thought. Idiot, idiot, idiot! They stopped walking and turned around, likely picking up on her chakra accelerating towards them. They waited, and she ran up, coming to a stop a couple feet short and bending over to gasp for a moment.
"Sorry... I'm... late..." she said between gasps for air. After a few second, she straightened back up, but she was still struggling to catch her breath. It'd been a long time since she was training regularly. She was in terrible shape. "Good morning."
"Morning, Kaisuki!" Naruto grinned, walking up and hugging her. She returned the gesture affectionately, always happy to see him. "Sleep well?"
The Yurei chuckled a bit sardonically and coughed to try and cover the sound. One cursory glance towards Naruto and Kakashi told her that they knew. Her new mentor's eyebrows rose just a bit.
"Rough morning?" Kakashi questioned.
Kaisuki swallowed the lump that was creeping back up her throat. "Ha, you could say that," she dismissed a bit his question awkwardly. "Shall we?"
They started walking. Kaisuki tapped Naruto's shoulder after a couple minutes of quiet walking. She supposed Kakashi would find out very quickly that she was homeless again, seeing as he was her mentor now. "Hey, uh," she felt her eyes sting and her cheeks heat up as soon as she tried to speak, though.
I fucking hatethis, she thought bitterly. It was beyond embarrassing but she needed to make sure she didn't end up sleeping on the streets again. Naruto was blinking at her, waiting for her to speak with a knowing look in his eyes that had started to feel like pity lately.
"Do you think I could stay at your place again, for uh... a bit?" She asked, unable to conceal her shame as her cheeks burned with humiliation. Things were supposed to improve as she got older, according to the Hokage, but they only seemed to get worse.
Naruto searched her face for a second before he smiled brightly. "Yea, totally! You know I love a good slumber party." He threw an arm around her shoulder. "We can do a blanket fort again!
She giggled at his joke, her humor sincere, but she still felt like the worst friend in history. "Thanks."
Her chest felt hotter than her cheeks. "Saeka...?" Kaisuki called out in her mind, unable to disguise her anxiety. The heat dissipated almost immediately. Kaisuki hated the "checking in" idea that the Hokage had suggested to her years ago, but it did seem to be effective. Saeka didn't always seem to realize when her fury was noticeably seeping through.
There were a few seconds of calm within her and then what felt like an electric shock seemed to ricochet through her chest and abdomen, though it faded as quickly as it came. Kaisuki couldn't help but suck in a breath in surprise, but she tried to do so as quietly as she could. She lowered her head and took a few deep breaths. That had felt almost like exactly like being hit in the chest with a rock, if memory was serving her. Not like Saeka's usual heat. Weird. Concerning, possibly.
There are records of Yurei holding up to 12 spirits, though most sources agree that Yurei holding more than 5 extra spirits ultimately resulted in the will and identity of the Host being obscured, degraded, or even destroyed over time...
Sometimes she regretted ever trying to do research about Yurei in the village library. Everything she'd learned just freaked her out or made her paranoid. There was hardly anything helpful to a living Yurei in those books, and it was obvious that they'd been written by Yurei slave-owners during wartime! She was twelve and she knew that there had to be more information somewhere, and that only made her inability to access it that much more frustrating. There was no way to even be sure if anything she'd read was recent research or from accredited sources; the newest articles and books that u specified the date of their release were from fifty or more years ago. She wanted to visit a proper library in a place that didn't ban books. If such a place existed, it probably wasn't in the Shinobi Nations, but maybe there she could actually learn something about herself.
"Kaisuki? Did you hear me?" Kaisuki looked up and was surprised to find that Kakashi and Naruto were both staring at her as they were walking up now-busy roads. She wasn't totally sure where they were at first, but a quick index of stores told her she hadn't spaced out for that long... compared to some other times, anyway.
"What's up?" She asked with a sheepish smile before continuing, "sorry, I'm sure it's obvious but I was spacing out."
"Yea, it was obvious," Naruto teased with a giggle. She stuck her tongue out at him. "Kakashi wants to know the last time you spoke to Sakura and Sasuke."
"Oh, uh... gods," she paused for a second, thinking. It didn't seem like it'd been that long but... she supposed it had been. Kakashi turned around, resuming his forward pace while he waited patiently for her answer.
"Well, last time I saw Sakura would've been in the academy, I think? Last day I was there, I got broke Ino's arm so. There's that." Kaisuki told her mentor – Naruto had been there that day. "And, um... I think the last time I spoke to Sasuke was uh... well, a few months ago we ended up at the Estate at the same time and..."
"The Estate?" Kakashi turned his head so he was talking over his shoulder, but not enough to actually look at her. "The Uchiha Estate?"
"Ye-... uh... no?" Kaisuki corrected last minute, noticing a few people looking their way. "No, of course not. That's... illegal. Right?"
"You don't have to lie, Kaisuki. I go in there sometimes too." Kakashi replied with a heavy voice. "I'm just surprised to hear that you go in there too. I knew Sasuke does."
"Lots of people go in there," Naruto stated, puffing his chest out while he had an opportunity to enter the conversation. "Pretty sure the whole village has written their name on the walls of that place by now. I know I ha-... haven't. Ever. That's illegal, ya' know, guys."
Kaisuki was stiff from the questioning but Naruto pulled a laugh out of her anyway. She tried to keep it quiet though. Why were people looking at them so much?
"Did you and Sasuke have a polite conversation or did you argue?" Kakashi asked, continuing his interview. Kaisuki looked at the back of his head. His hair was a wreck and she was reasonably certain that he didn't style it like that on purpose. Did the man know what hair wash was?
"Um, well, it's Sasuke, so we argued, of course." Kaisuki replied, mindlessly tracing her fingers along the folds of the scarf around her waist. Kakashi hummed, thoughtful and prompting at the same time. "I mean, well... he found me in Itachi's room, so... I guess I can't blame him for flipping out."
"Ah, yea," Kakashi agreed without hesitation. "I can only imagine. Itachi is still a very sore spot."
"No, more like... well, nevermind, I'd rather not go into detail. He was mad because I was in Itachi's room and he felt that was "fucked up and shitty" of me, to quote him... among other things." Kaisuki forced herself to say. She understood he wanted a heads-up on what kind of teamwork to expect from them but... she didn't like talking about herself and Sasuke's non-friendship. It was a sore spot of her own.
"Saeka ended up telling him to fuck off and die and then we, uh, took off," she abbreviated the end of the story, not wanting to get into the specifics of what was said that day. She was still ashamed and she still didn't know if he'd meant what he said any more or less than she did. "I dunno what's up with him since then, we've been fully avoiding each other, I think."
"You think?" She could hear Kakashi's raised eyebrow.
"Well, I dunno, I never see him. He might be doing that on purpose or ... I don't know. Anything better than that is probably wishful thinking," she trailed off as they turned off the streets and into the woods towards the training grounds. "I don't really think ... well, I guess I shouldn't jinx it."
"No, you're free to speak your thoughts, Kaisuki," Kakashi responded, turning to make eye contact with her again. "I want to know what you think. I am supposed to be you kids' mentor and it's sort of my job to pay attention to team relationships and dynamics."
Kaisuki frowned at the ground, silent for a few seconds. "I don't think Sasuke and I will be able to work together. I... I wanna make up with him but..." She was surprised by how hard it was to admit it out loud. "I don't think it's possible. My … opinions are unforgivable in his eyes, and he won't see past it. I... would let it lie if he would."
Kakashi nodded slowly as he turned back towards the road, his head bobbing in thought. Kaisuki chewed on her lip and fingered one of the frayed ends of her scarf. There was a vast hole in her heart where Itachi and Sasuke had been. The older brother's defection still went unexplained as far as Kaisuki was concerned and she was determined to eventually find out everything that had pushed Itachi to do such a thing – the man she'd known would never do something so extreme with no reason or thought behind it.
Sasuke, on the other hand, still seemed to believe everything Itachi said no matter the circumstances and refused to accept any reason for his brother's betrayal other than the piss-poor one he'd been given on the night of the massacre.
"I mean, think about it, Sasuke!"
"I don't have to think about it, he told me himself!"
They'd had that fight probably two dozen times since they were eight, in steadily more adult language as Kaisuki slowly formulated ideas on why and Sasuke sank deeper into depression and bitterness. She didn't blame him for feeling the way he did and, if he'd just stop bringing up Itachi, they would never fight about it at all!
Nearly everyone in the village knew not to talk to (or even around) Sasuke about the former Uchiha Clan - not even in a positive way. There had been two or three times that kids had tried to bully him about it, only for him to break out the Grand Fireball he'd learned shortly before the massacre in retaliation. Somehow, the Hokage quietly placated the dozens of enraged parents, who's children had been burned (literally and figuratively) by the consequences of their own actions.
Kaisuki had stood up for Sasuke back then; she had been there for him because, after the death of her own family, Itachi and Sasuke and their parents had adopted her, replacing her family for the couple of years she stayed with them. Even after she'd moved out of their house, Itachi and Sasuke still frequently found her and brought her home with them for dinner, or just hung out with her until they had to go home – until the massacre.
Sasuke would stay out as late as he could and, when Itachi came to fetch him, the older brother would take over and spend several hours of the evening with her. Itachi had ensured many nights that she was safe and hidden even if she was homeless. They hadn't understood very well why she wouldn't stay with them. She still wished she had been there that fateful night. She could've walked Sasuke home... or something.
She missed Sasuke. They weren't blood, and maybe he didn't see her the same way she saw him anymore but, to Kaisuki, the two of them were still family and she still cared for him and worried about him and loved him as family. Kaisuki understood Sasuke's feelings perfectly. She felt betrayed by Itachi, too! She just wished he understood her point of view in return.
"Kaisuki," she heard her name and looked up immediately. Had he been talking to her again!? After a pause, in which Kakashi looked back to make sure she was listening, he began to speak. "Sasuke and you do not have to be best friends to function as a team. Teams function better when they're made up of friends, but Sasuke is antisocial in general and it's not like he's really friends with Sakura or Naruto either." Her new mentor explained as the dirt path began to open up into the fields of the training grounds. "To function as a team, you need communication, honesty and truthfulness, and the discipline to deal with people and situations you don't want to do, all of which is normal in adulthood anyway. Considering the makeup of our team, it's less important for everyone to be friends and more important for you all to be confident in each other's and your own skills."
Kakashi took a deep breath that sounded like a bothered sigh, but Kaisuki wasn't sure if he was actually annoyed or just tired. It was hard to get a clear read on him. "Sasuke and Sakura know that you're joining the team already because I gave them this talk too. So, to be transparent, I'm addressing you just as much as I'm addressing Saeka, right now."
The Jounin spun around to face her, stooping forward to stare her down with his one visible eye and stopping her in her tracks. He held that intense eye contact and Kaisuki found herself cringing away from his gaze unintentionally. "Both you and Sasuke have violent impulses that come up when you're angry, but especially when you're angry with each other. If you need help figuring out how to control your temper, I am willing to help - but you need to ask for that help before your fighting becomes an issue," his tone was measured and stern and it felt like she was a small child being scolded. "I am happy to send you both back to the academy at any point in time from here until I lose the authority to do that. Naruto and Sakura could function as a team on their own. You're not little kids anymore. You're Shinobi now; your actions have severe and even deadly consequences. None of you are worth sacrificing my career or life over; don't ever forget that."
Kaisuki was stiff-backed through his talk but, as Kakashi seemingly concluded, she nodded. His eyes softened right away. "Okay, lecture over. Sorry for turning on the Sensei Voice. I promise I don't usually use it."
"It's okay," Kaisuki replied with a dry mouth. It was like the humiliation and shame from the morning was poured back over her. Her throat was tight and her eyes stung. She stared at the ground and tried to hide her face with her black hair while she swallowed the lump that was crawling back up her throat.
She needed to hold it together; she'd sooner die than cry in front of Sasuke.
…
"Good morning, Sasuke," Sakura greeted him with familiarity that made the butterflies in her stomach flutter. She still didn't know how she'd gotten used to referring to Sasuke without an honorific. It was a bit strange to be assigned to his team after the Academy but she was happy with it regardless.
"Morning, Sakura," the raven-haired boy replied with a distinct lack of tone that still felt like affection after years of getting only a silent cold shoulder. Did he consider her more of an equal now that they had both graduated and were on the same team? That would be nice. She'd like to at least walk home with him at night, if he'd let her. She knew he was scared of the dark.
She asked him, "How was your morning?"
"Could've been worse, but it wasn't," he answered as he stood up, gesturing to the stump he'd been sitting on. She smiled at him and sat down, cheeks warming just a little as she ran her thumb over her cuticles, a relic of a nail-biting habit she had overcome years ago. Sasuke was usually already standing when she arrived, so she hadn't been expecting him to give up his seat. "Kakashi should be here soon. Typical four hours late."
I wonder if he usually gets up before I get here to be polite... it was hard to resist the smile that was trying to stretch into her cheeks
"Yea," Sakura agreed, speaking before the silence lapsed for too long. "Actually, I think it's closer to five hours, by now. I came late because Naruto said Kaisuki would be late."
Sasuke turned around to look at her with a flash of what she immediately recognized as incredulity and irritation. She looked back at him. His expression had been schooled to a blank gaze but she had seen enough in that one instant to guess what he was thinking. He didn't voice his thoughts and instead turned away again and looked up towards the sky. Sakura watched him, a faint smile on her face. He was still Sasuke, after all.
He was estimating the time to confirm her statement, because he didn't believe her and because he didn't believe he had been mistaken. Sasuke made more mistakes than he ever seemed to realize, but Sakura was always watching to make sure he didn't trip too hard. Despite everything, Sasuke was Sasuke. In the end, refusing to acknowledge that he had redone the math in his head just then, Sasuke just looked down and kicked at the ground, before gazing out to the field they expected the tardy two (plus one) members of the team.
"Five hours?" He muttered. He seemed bothered by his miscalculation of the time. "Five hours late?"
Sakura let out a soft sigh of amusement. "Yea," she confirmed. "Pretty late."
"Typical Kaisuki."
.
"Has it been six whole hours yet?" The sudden break from Sasuke's long list of expletives and adjectives used to describe Kaisuki was a welcome one, even though it remained on-topic. At a certain point, his temper was nearly intolerable even for someone as devoted to him as she was. Sakura reached into her chest pocket and produced her timepiece. Indeed, it had been six hours and fifteen minutes.
Sakura looked up at Sasuke as she put her pocket watch away. He was staring at her unblinkingly, like he was waiting for her to confirm it before he resumed his colorfully-worded rant about their new teammate. She could see his jaw muscles twitching.
"Yep," she answered while leaning back on her palms. "It's been six whole hours."
Sasuke huffed, turning back to the field and muttering more profanity to himself. Sakura just listened to him and the wind combing the grass and trees. The sky was pale and the clouds were scarce. Birds sounded off their morning calls from the trees. Out on the training grounds, it was always so peaceful.
"There they are," Sasuke suddenly said only two minutes later. Sakura looked up and out across the fields as well. Sure enough, they were finally within sight. Sasuke stepped away from the stripped and scarred training post he'd been leaning against, walking out from under the shade offered by the tree. Sakura stood up and followed him the few steps, certain that he was about to start a fight. That was what Sasuke did now that he was a Genin - start fights with his teammates, that is.
She frowned at his back, seeing the sweat dripping down his neck. She sighed quietly to herself and took a second to estimate how far out the other were. She had time. Sasuke was probably already hot after standing in the heat and now the sun, which meant his temper would be worse. For a boy from a clan known for their fireballs, Sasuke was surprisingly sensitive to heat. Sakura reached into her bag and wrapped her fingers around the extra bottle of water she'd brought. In a few seconds of working with her chakra, the water was cooled and ready to drink.
"Sasuke, are you thirsty?" She asked, watching the back of his sweaty neck carefully.
"What?" Sasuke turned to her, his expression betraying his annoyance at her interrupting his furious internal narrative. She let the irritation slide off her back as quickly as it faded from his face. He looked like he was about to say no but then she saw him swallow. "Yea, actually, I am..."
Yea, I know. She thought dreamily.
"Here," she handed him the water bottle she had cooled for him. "I was gonna have some, but I figured I'd offer you some before I did. I know you get hot this time of year."
The look Sasuke directed at her then seemed surprised, maybe confused. She smiled innocently until he nodded agreeably, uncapping the bottle and pouring it into his mouth without touching it to his lips. When he gave it back, he'd drunk more than half of it at once. Sakura hadn't realized he was so thirsty - she'd have offered some sooner if she had. Next time she'd keep a third water on her, just in case.
She took a few sips of it before returning it to her bag and when she looked up again, Sasuke was already distracted by Naruto, Kakashi, and Kaisuki walking up to them.
"Yo," Kakashi greeted them lamely. He appeared to be in good spirits, which was good. He would need the patience for Sasuke's attitude that day. "Good morning, Sasuke, Sakura."
"It's almost noon." Sasuke snapped, already at his wit's end. "You're twice as late as usual, what the hell?"
"I told you we'd be late," Naruto shot back before Kakashi had a chance to defend himself. "But I guess I only told Sakura. I assumed you were listening but I guess you really do ignore everything I say."
"I wasn't talking to you," was Sasuke's icy response.
"Way to prove my point, jackass."
"The fuck did you just...?"
"Enough," Kakashi bellowed unnecessarily loudly. From the distance they were, it was near-deafening. Sakura's hand clamped over her ears immediately. He called it his "Stadium Voice". "What did I tell you about petty fights like this, yesterday?"
"'If you got into the kind of petty fights we did'," Sakura recited for them without prompting, slowly lowering her hands from her ears. "'You'd lose your Jounin license faster than you could apologize and no one would ever let you hold a kunai again'."
"Thank you, Sakura," Kakashi said with noticeable exasperation. Sakura felt it like a snap against her forehead. She hadn't even thought about it – a question required an answer, right? Apparently not in real life, just in her parents' home. Her fingers ghosted over her cuticles and she swallowed uncomfortably.
"This isn't the Academy. If you don't work with one teammate, the whole team will die. This isn't an exercise, this is the reality of the world you're about to enter," their mentor lectured a fair bit more aggressively than he had the previous the day. "It's hostile out there and people who can't work with others do not survive. There is no such thing as a one-man army."
"That's it, you hear me?" Kakashi's voice was firm and unforgiving. His Sensei Voice remained unchallenged. "There will be no more in-fighting. If you have nothing constructive or kind to say, just shut up. You'll be lucky if all I do is send you back to the Academy."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sasuke challenged with a heated glare. Sakura wished he would just be quiet and listen, but maybe he wouldn't really be Sasuke if he did.
Kakashi leveled a deadpan look at the gifted Uchiha. "It means 'don't give me an excuse to pull rank and get you all permanently banned from pursuing a Shinobi career because of your adolescent emotional instability', or in simpler terms; grow up."
…
"Alright, we're going to do some team-building exercises today, alright? If for no other reason than to help you all let off some steam." Kakashi announced the following morning when they reconvened for their first day of actual training as a team. They all stood in a semi-circle, with Kakashi resting an elbow on the top of Sasuke's head, an action which had seemed to silence any protests that the Uchiha might've wanted to make. It was hard to take him seriously when Kakashi was treating him like furniture.
Kakashi turned Sasuke around and started marching him along, with the rest of the team falling in step alongside them. "You're Genin now and you're fresh off the boat, so to speak. It's a good time to advance you a few levels."
"What are we doing today, sensei?" Sakura asked, ever the good student. Kaisuki looked at the pink-haired girl. She hadn't offered any comment about Kaisuki's late arrival the previous day, nor had she really interacted with Kaisuki at all that morning. She seemed a lot more confident than the Yurei remembered her being.
Yea, but that was years ago.
Saeka had been nearly radio silent since the previous morning and Kaisuki felt the absence far more than she expected to. Without the responding quip, she felt a bit lonely.
"You're going to walk up some trees," Kakashi informed them at the edge of the rows of trees that surrounded the training grounds. He gestured towards the trees, one hand lazily placed upon Sasuke's mess of black hair. "You learned how to move and mold your chakra in the Academy, correct?"
A terse chorus of "yea" was the disinterested response their mentor got. Kaisuki couldn't help feeling awkward as the only quiet "no" among her peers. Unfazed by their dejected attitudes, however, Kakashi walked up to a pair of trees that stood side by side and were equal in size and height.
Their instructor explained their training brief shortly. "Here's how we're going to do this: Your task is to walk up the trunk of the tree, from the ground to the top. There is a flag objective at the top that you need to collect."
There was a huff, which Kaisuki quickly identified as Sasuke. "Easy enough."
"Obviously, since we're a four-man team, you're going to team up in pairs, which I will choose. Every 8 minutes, the teams will shuffle," Kakashi continued. "Most of you learned everything you need to know to do this in the Academy during your final year. You just need to put it together and help each other. No, Sakura, I'm not going to demonstrate when we both know you're a better teacher. You're a team now. Act like it."
Sakura's face turned bright red at the compliment and she was left speechless. No one else had anything to ask or say, so Kakashi called out the first pairs: "Sakura and Kaisuki, Naruto and Sasuke. Those are the first teams. Get busy, learn as much as you can before you switch and share that information!"
They were already jogging up to the trees in their pairs. Kaisuki saw Sakura swallow and chew the inside of her cheek, looking pensive. But after a moment, she took a breath and made eye contact with Kaisuki, her smile a little forced. Kaisuki smiled back, or at least she was reasonably sure she'd made the correct expression. Naruto and Sasuke were already glaring at each other, clearly intending to compete more than cooperate. At least the Uchiha wasn't staring daggers at her anymore.
Sakura and Kaisuki strode over to the farther tree. "So, you d... uh, left school..."
"You can say dropped out," Kaisuki snorted light-heatedly, immediately realizing it was a callous way to handle it. She cleared her throat. "I dropped out in our... I think right at the start of our third year."
Sakura was still chewing on her lips thoughtfully. "Okay, I ... academically speaking, how far did you get with chakra theory and activation?"
Kaisuki took a breath, mulling things over in her mind as she looked for the words to explain. She uttered several thoughtful sounds, frowning at nothing in particular. "I mean, I ... a lot of what I know is self-taught, Naruto-taught, or Saeka-taught. I've learned a lot that way, but... I'm sure there's gaps. So, like, I can mold chakra, sort of..."
...
Sasuke was staring over at Sakura and Kaisuki again. It was probably the most girl-crazed he had ever been, but it was the completely wrong kind of crazed. He looked like he was considering whether Sakura working with Kaisuki meant he had to hate her now, too. The girls were talking animatedly, Kaisuki showing Sakura how she molded chakra and Sakura clearly offering valid pointers, helping her understand the mechanism for what she was doing, and so on. Sasuke looked beyond irate with it.
Geez, dude, don't give anyone the wrong idea. Naruto knew he was immature, but at least he was self-aware!
"Hey," Naruto spoke up, his voice deadly serious. There was exactly one way he knew how to make his chakra and body do what he wanted, and that was through brute force and repeated, consistent attempts, learning more (painfully) with each step. Coincidentally, there was also only one way to uniformly and effectively distract Sasuke from everything around him.
"What?" The Uchiha's voice was like the crack of a whip.
"Race me?" Naruto was backing up, still staring at his black-haired teammate. The number one most effective way to distract and calm Sasuke was challenging him to a competition. It didn't even really matter if his opponent was worth it. Sasuke would accept a challenge from anyone and anything if for no other reason than to stroke his own ego and prove he was The Prodigy, not just a prodigy. Not that either term meant anything to Naruto.
"Race you?"
"What? Don't wanna lose?" Naruto teased more than taunted but he watched the fire light in Sasuke's black eyes. Mission accomplished. From about thirty feet back, Naruto starting sprinting headlong at the tree, aware that Sasuke was watching him, and sprinted up the side of the tree. About three steps in, he realized he wasn't sticking but he was climbing. He managed to get his chakra to work, sticking for another four huge steps after that, before his concentration slipped and his chakra abruptly repelled him hard, sending him flying back. He barely had a second to pull a kunai and use it to mark the spot where his last step was.
Landing was a little messy because he wasn't fully aware of how far off the ground he was (the answer being not very far). Distance was deceiving the higher off the ground he got, apparently.
Once he had stopped rolling, he sat up and smirked with the impudence only the lowest-scoring member of their graduating class could have offered. The Uchiha glared at him, insulted by being challenged at all, before assuming his own stance. With power, precision, and a fire in his eyes, Sasuke ran up the side of the tree. Naruto had jumped to his feet to run as well, but Sasuke took off before he could catch up. Despite his over-confidence, Sasuke only made it a step further than Naruto had by brute forcing it.
Sasuke glowered at the mark he'd left before turning his glare on Naruto.
"Don't be mad just because you can't be me," Naruto stuck his tongue out. Sasuke stood up and got into his stance again and Naruto did the same. They ran up two more times, doubling their progress the second time. By the end of the eight minutes, Kaisuki and Sakura were just starting to put their soles against the side of their tree.
A shrill whistle filled the air.
"Alright, times up. Sakura and Naruto, please switch sides!" Kakashi called out with his Stadium Voice, this time from fairly far away. He was relaxing in the grass with a blanket and a snack that he had procured from seemingly nowhere, reading his usual unusual book.
"Good luck," Naruto grinned at Sasuke because he was a good sportsman unlike some people.
The Uchiha sent a dark glare his way, a bit more hostile-seeming than a moment before.
Way to prove my point again.
Naruto jogged away, not wanting to spend much longer with the guy if he was making a face like that. He was probably just irritated because his challenger hadn't been left in the dust like he'd expected. His classmates had a lot to say about him, but Naruto had graduated with them too. He had to take the test three times but he still graduated.
He's not just a prodigy, he's a prodigious drama queen! He sniggered to himself as he regrouped with Kaisuki. She was relieved, if not overjoyed, to have been put with Naruto instead of Sasuke and embraced him when he got to her.
"I wanna see if we can get up together, okay?" She began immediately after they hugged. She looked a bit more excited about having joined the team than she had the first day. He was glad. Even if Sasuke was a ripe douche, he was glad to have his best friend with him. He'd felt sort of outnumbered between Sakura and Sasuke.
She continued, "I think I understand the chakra molding, how are you doing?"
"I don't understand chakra molding but I have made it like ... forty feet up the other tree through willpower alone!" Kaisuki raised her eyebrows at that and Naruto immediately felt he had to correct himself, or at least offer some kind of disclaimer. "I dunno, something like that, not great at estimating here, you know. Maybe it's more like thir-..."
"No, I trust your estimate," Kaisuki interrupted him, smiling with pride. "I saw how high you were, but it's hard to tell from here. That's a lot of progress for just brute-forcing it. You're amazing, you know."
Naruto felt his face heat up faster than the air once the sun rose, unable to stop the stupid grin that grew unabated on his face. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and cleared his throat, "D-do you wanna try your thing and I'll do my thing and we'll meet at sixty feet?"
"Well, I'll try, anyway," Kaisuki chuckled a bit weakly, but his best friend always made up for her lack of confidence with tenacity and a stubborn refusal to accept failure. She got herself ready and Naruto could see her chakra begin to activate by the soft glow around her. He followed her example, but backed up to about twenty feet. When he looked over at the other tree, he saw that Sasuke was already in the middle of running up, and Sakura was starting to climb as well – expertly and smoothly, as always.
We can do that, though. He knew they could. It might take a little bit longer but he knew they'd catch up in no time. Naruto sprinted forward, activating his chakra and starting his run up the tree. This time he stuck right away and was able to release with no issue. It took a lot of discipline to not let his pleasure at his success distract him. He continued for what felt like quite a while before he started to get anxious about his progress and lost his focus. He managed to sink a kunai into the trunk before he fell and used it to help him climb up to the branch closest to him. He'd rather not fall fifty or sixty feet straight to the ground. Jinchuriki or not, he didn't think he'd survive such a fall.
"You would." The Kyuubi casually replied. Naruto stared off in the distance, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
Nobody asked. Literally not a single person asked.
He looked down to see how Kaisuki was doing, distracting himself from the Kyuubi's presence. His best friend was carefully but steadily crawling up the trunk instead of walking, her face sweating from the effort. It seemed like she was struggling to put out enough chakra consistently to do it with just two feet. She must've been in terrible shape.
"You got this, Kai! Imagine stepping in putty!" He yelled down at her and saw her jump, nearly falling back down the truck the way she'd come. Before her chakra gave out, she caught a branch and pulled herself up to it, looking up at him in exasperation. "Sorry!"
"No, it's fine!" she called back, chuckling and shaking her head in what might've been disbelief. "Thanks for the imagery!"
He grinned down at her, glad that his analogy had helped. Sometimes he had good ideas. He turned back to the trunk of the tree, pointedly not looking to see where Sasuke and Sakura were. One foot one at a time, he activated his chakra and stuck to the branch he was standing on. He spent a few seconds adjusting until it felt like the putty he'd described to Kaisuki before he put a foot on the wide trunk, and then another. A couple of solid steps and he started walking up - not running, which he quickly realized made it a lot harder to do.
.
Kakashi spent the entire afternoon expecting fireworks to go off at any moment but, after a couple hours passed with the teams switching dutifully, there had been no explosions on the training grounds. Kaisuki and Naruto worked well together, Sakura was fine with the whole team – even Kaisuki and her seemed to have figured out some kind of even ground. Kaisuki and Sasuke, on the other hand, did not interact at all. Sasuke was clearly fuming about having to be in the same vicinity, let alone on the same team, as Kaisuki. Kakashi saw many moments where the Uchiha was clearly ready to spit something rude but perhaps felt his mentor staring at him intensely. Kaisuki herself was no innocent bystander either and was frequently sending her own line of hostile and bitter gazes towards her former friend. He caught her biting her tongue several times as well.
Hey, at least they didn't start throwing kunai, Kakashi.
Maybe they had taken his words to heart and he was being too judgmental. They were still twelve years old and times were very different from how he'd grown up. If they were already able to not pick a fight unnecessarily, maybe he could be more hopeful towards the future. They'd grow out of it, right? That was how teenagers were... right?
He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled again, this time waving them all over when they looked his way. They jogged over and he stood up, bookmarking his page and stashing the small novel in his rear kunai pouch. While he stretched for a moment, the tweens stepped up and formed a line before him to await further directions.
"You've all done an excellent job today just by not fighting. Sasuke, Kaisuki, I know you two have history so I'm proud of you two especially," Kakashi expressed to them. He was far more impressed than he would ever admit to them. "You know I don't have crazy high expectations for you two getting along. I'm happy enough to see that you're capable of working in the same space.
"That being said, you'll have to eventually reach a point where you can communicate back and forth without a mediator or a meltdown." Naruto was leaning forward to openly stare at Kaisuki and Sasuke, his eyes switching back and forth between them, eyebrows raised in aggressive agreement with their sensei.
Kakashi couldn't help the breath of laughter that escaped his nose. "Naruto and Sakura are obviously going to be the glue that holds you guys together," he teased gently, smiling under his mask. "Hopefully the team dynamic will improve on its own over time. Alright, questions or comments?"
Sasuke was staring broodingly at his feet, his lower jaw jutted forward as he bit into the inside of his lip. Kaisuki was passive-aggressively staring out into the field on the opposite side of the lineup from Sasuke. Sakura was fidgeting with her hand, now looking at her teammates to see if they had input. In the end, it was of course Naruto who raised his hand first.
"Yes, Naruto?" Kakashi directed towards him.
Sasuke let out a sigh that was nearly a dismissive insult in and of itself and Naruto flipped him off in response without even looking at the boy. For all the horror stories his grade school teachers had about him and his delinquency and as ironic as it probably sounded...
"What time are we meeting tomorrow?"
At least Naruto's emotionally stable. Which was more than he could say for even himself.