WhIP

by footfungus

nederlands verhalen over mijn otp

54. NARUTO 3

From Outside Eyes

Mysana

Summary:

Asano is born as the Kyuubi rages. She is born weak, and she is born again. She is loved and she is strange. This is the story of a reincarnated soul, of the people around her, and of Konoha as it changes.

SI-OC from outside perspectives with many POVs

Notes:

Inspired by Like Pinwheels in the Wind by Yuesya

(See the end of the work for notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1: Part 1 - Birth - Shoichi

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Shoichi remembers when he was young and his mother was wasting away in front her eyes. He had cried, had said it wasn't fair. He had begged the gods for mercy. His mother had laughed even though it hurt - he could see it in the tension on her face - and rubbed her thumb over his hand.

"Sho, don't cry," she had said, "this is the way it should be. The cruelest fate is for a parent to bury their child, that is far, far worse." He had nodded even though it didn't feel like it at the time, he knew it was true. He had seen his mother's face when she buried his brother, that had been worse.

He had understood it to be true, but it wasn't until he was here, in the neonatal ICU, that he understood. When he had first come into the room, his wife at his side, there had been 25 children in 25 beds. He had watched his daughter, only glancing up from time to time, to realise that some of the children - and parents - were gone. And not because they were out of danger.

In truth the entire hospital was like that. He, himself, probably needed some medical help for chakra poisoning, but that wouldn't be fatal unless it went untreated for months and there just weren't enough doctors to help at the moment. It didn't much matter though, he wouldn't leave his daughter's side even if there were doctors available.

Ten. There were 10 children left.

Shoichi clenched his jaw, he knew that the 15 children that were now gone - dead - had been civilian children to civilian parents. Their daughter was neither, she had chakra that showed her shinobi parentage and that could save her life. Beyond that his wife, her family was known for being long lived - that could help. Right?

He looked at his daughter, who would remain unnamed until her survival was more likely. (God he hated that tradition, the doctors wouldn't even bring the birth certificate until it was clear whether or not they would need a death certificate too.) Her skin was so pale it was translucent, he could see her heart fluttering like a sparrow beneath the skin. She wasn't crying. The doctors had noted and said in calm, though tense, voices that it wasn't a good sign. She wasn't doing much of anything actually. Her eyes were still pale and squinting like all infants. Regardless, she was staring. Just staring and blinking slowly.

Shoichi looked at his daughter, who looked nothing like her brothers but rather a lot like himself. (As much as a newborn could look like an adult at least.) He looked at his wife with her blonde hair and bright brown eyes. He had to believe she would be fine. She had to be fine. They both had to be fine, they all had to be fine.

(Where were his sons? The attack, he hadn't seen them since the attack.)

Nine children left.

His daughter turned towards him and stared at him with blue eyes that would fade darker (if she survived). She looked like a Nara already. He laughed a bitter laugh. She was less than a day old, her skin was still red and face still smashed, but that striking gaze would not change with time. He knew it already. Shoichi swallowed a sob. He almost hated the Nara. He couldn't though. Not really. They took his mother, his brother, would they take his daughter too?

(Not if she dies first.) Eight children left.

He stood, walked five paces, then returned to his seat. He would not leave until he knew whether he had a daughter or not. (He would have daughter either way, but his tears would be the only ones to water her grave if she died now.) His wife, his lovely, sleeping wife. She was a better shinobi than he had ever been able to be. Yoko has always been better at putting her emotions aside and doing what needed to be done. (He remembers when she finally took off her mask, in both a figurative and literal sense. He will always wonder if it was all for show. If she really let go, let him in.)

Seven children left.

The sounds of crying have gotten quieter. The children dead and the parents gone. The ward is now being invaded by medic-nin who need more space to heal those injured in the Kyuubi's attack. Shoichi wonders if the high losses will mean that Yoko will have to go back into service. He wonders how she would feel about that. When she revealed that she'd been pregnant he'd been ecstatic. When he learned that she would be taking maternity leave he nodded happily because he had always hoped (dreamed, never truly believed) that his children would get to know their mother. He had been surprised when she got pregnant again instead of turning to the battlefield, to the war, like so many around them. Yoko had always been a woman made for the battle as long as they had known each other. She didn't enjoy the slaughter, but she did enjoy the battle, the balance, the dance as she called it.

When she had told him that she was pregnant for the third time it occurred to him that either, he had deeply misread his wife, or there was something going on that he didn't know about. After that it had rather come together. Despite being an illegitimate descendant of the Senju, she was a descendant of a nearly extinct clan. She also didn't have the political clout or obvious power that would protect her from attempts to ensure that the valuable line of Senju blood didn't die out.

He wondered if she had secured something in return for whatever deal she had made, or if she had done it purely out of loyalty to Konoha.

Six children left. Five children left.

It took a moment to pull himself out the meditative fog of watching his daughter's delicate breaths to realise that there was a medic standing next to him and his wife was awake. Five children left. From twenty five. Konoha was one of the larger shinobi villages, restricted in size by the natural walls of the area and the scrutiny that faced all visitors and immigrants. Twenty five children and those were the ones who had been lucky enough to be protected from the direct attack of the Kyuubi's chakra by nature of still being in the womb. (Should still be in the womb.) So many more young ones across the village, especially the orphans and civilians who wouldn't have seals in place to protect their valuable heirs. (No doubt Shikamaru Nara, the newest addition to the Nara clan was fine and well as long has he hadn't been visiting the market with his mother, while he was here wondering if his daughter would… It did no good to be angry at those who hadn't even been alive to have choice in the matter. Why couldn't he let it go then?)

"Sakurai-san?"

"Hai?" Shoichi looked up the medic. Long hours and chakra usage had taken it's toll, the man's eyes had marks like bruises beneath them and his hair was an oily mess. His clothes appeared to have a variety of dried liquids on them from blood to coffee and the ill fit suggested that it was borrowed.

"Do you have any injuries that need to be urgently attended to?"

"Mild chakra poisoning, but nothing immediately life threatening. My daughter needs food however, we haven't had anyone available to help for a number of hours now."

"Of course, once I've spoken with the other occupants of the ro-" A long scream of a seal with the accompanying red light and sudden loud sobbing told Shoichi all he needed to know as the medic rushed to help.

Four children left.

Worse yet a quick glance told him that the father sitting by the now empty crib was a shinobi. His daughters survival become more unlikely by the minute. He had to hope though, he had to believe that his wife's blood, known of its longevity, would pull through. That his daughter would pull through.

Shoichi had always wanted a daughter, or when he was younger, a little sister. He loved Taro and Hideo, loved that with all his heart and soul, would happily sacrifice to an eternal torment in tho Shinigami's stomach if it would mean their happiness. He loved his sons, but he wanted a daughter.

Sleep did not come easy through the night, though once Yoko had returned to the hospital after finding their sons safe and alive (he didn't even notice she was gone) he let himself rest.

When he awoke there were only three beds still in use.

Notes:

This fic takes place in a slight AU that will be referenced in chapter 17, and explained around chapter 27.

Each chapter is written from the specific point of view of various character, these characters view the world through the lens of their own bias and experience and as such, their view points do not reflect my own.

Info about me and what I'm doing is in my profile.

Chapter 2: Waiting - Shoichi

Chapter Text

The doctor had entered the room that morning (three children left) and had told them they needed to leave. Each family was given seals and incubators worth a B-rank mission at least. Shoichi didn't have to wonder why.

It was standard protocol in an emergency to prioritise shinobi and the most likely to survive. In that order. To keep up the fighting force and to prevent doctors from wasting their time. He had never been a fan of it. His brother had suffered from the ruling. His mother had suffered from the ruling. His daughter would suffer from it to.

Please let her live.

Yoko, who has spent the last few days at home looking after the boys but coming to visit twice a day like clockwork, takes the medical equipment the hospital is letting them borrow and sets it up at home. Shoichi gets a special carrier basket covered in seals to carry his child home in.

The doctors (there are so many of them, each one tired and overworked) made it clear that the ambient chakra in the air could be enough to overwhelm his daughter's systems. They aren't sure what long term effect the kyuubi's demonic chakra will have on her. They don't say it but he knows they aren't willing to spare a Hyuuga to look at the chakra network of a newborn who will most likely die anyway. (Especially a third born. Maybe it would be different if she was their first child. The presumed heir to the non-existent throne.)

No matter his anger, at his village, the doctors, the situation, walking through the village carrying his daughter is… good. Even though she's less than a week old (5 day, 14 hours, 28 minutes and counting) he shows her the Hokage Monument. He points out the academy, the tree he used to play under. He doesn't waste time wandering around, but he wants to know a little about the world in which she currently lives (even if it's not for long).

Her current view of Konoha isn't the finest he's ever seen. In fact, it might be the worst. Konoha itself was barely touched, in the physical sense of buildings at least, in the last war. There had been a different atmosphere.

The one third of Fire Countries total shinobi force had been sent off for their time on the border, "desk shinobi" had been called into action with genin dropouts taking their place where necessary. There had been an aura of forced confidence. What he would call a mix of extreme patriotism and desperation. The general feeling had been one of, 'we have to win, we're the best! (Why isn't this over yet?)'

Right now, Konoha provides a difference sight. The buildings are decimated. Entire districts are flattened which is obvious now in a way he hadn't seen from the hospital. Most of the dead bodies are gone now. The blood stains the still remain. Along the street, on the walls. It looks as if there was a massacre. Crumbled buildings and half-fallen banners make the streets look like that of a ghost town.

Every couple of seconds another shinobi runs by. Presumably the civilians are either still in lockdown or are evacuated from this area.

"Sir," Shoichi turns to face the genin's muddy face, "this area is at risk of collapsing. You may prefer to take a safer route." The genin gives a weighted look towards the basket, or more likely, the baby inside.

"Aah. Thank you. What's your name?" He shifts his daughter from one hand to the other. He looks the genin up and down quickly but can't tell who it is. They probably were in the most recent class of graduates. (It's always a good idea to know the names and faces of other shinobi.)

"Kayo, sir." The genin looks a bit uncertain which makes Shoichi in turn feel more confident. Older genin have learned to hide their nerves better. Although he couldn't tell from a glance before, Kayo is a girl's name, and with that he can see the softness in her cheeks and the straps of her sports bra. A practical girl then. Yoko was just complaining the other day about girls wearing bandages instead of sports bras because they 'looked cooler' despite the serious injuries one could get.

"Thank you for the warning Kayo-chan. I hadn't known." Shoichi turns to go back the other way and hears as Kayo takes a hesitant step.

"Would you like me to guide you through a safe route? A number of streets have been marked as unsafe." He can hear in the pause in words and the crunch of debris as she twists her foot in place that she's unsure. Even if he hadn't known before, that alone tells him that she is new to this.

"I suspect you have a mission you must finish first. Thank you for the offer, but now that I am aware of the risk I can take care of myself. Have a good day Kayo-chan." He gives her a final smile and pushes chakra to make a leap.

A sudden rush of burning pain hit his ankles, but he ignores it and waves as he leaps away. Chakra poisoning is not a fun thing and as soon as his daughter is home safe and sound he is going to go get that fixed.

He stumbled, gently, on the landing as his brain reminds him that. For one, he has chakra poisoning. Two, he hasn't properly slept in 6 days. Three, he has eaten nothing but a single ration (⅓ of the caloric intake he needs daily) for the past 6 days. He can already hear Yoko admonishing him. 'Just because you have another focus doesn't mean you can let go of everything else! It's your responsibility to keep yourself in good condition!'

They don't have a big house. In fact, they have a rather small house, considering that they have two ranked shinobi living there with what is now three children. It's pretty perfect though. The red roof with green trimming that is so common make it look bright and cheerful. They live above a small bakery that keeps the house warm (in winter and in summer - it's a mixed blessing).

Shoichi opens the front door, and avoid Yoko's traps. Down from their bedroom come the boys. Hideo, his second son comes first, running. His blond hair is messy and clearly unbrushed, making it look more like his own course black hair despite the colouring. Hideo crouches down and stares at his younger sister, laying quietly in the basket.

"Hello Imouto, I'm your oni-chan!"

Taro comes down second, more slowly. He walks down, and though he isn't taking his time, he's definitely not running. Taro has the Nara eyes (and oh how it burns that his own children look like someone else's clan) and the way he looks around the room as if he can see its secrets is a touch unnerving. Shoichi's own brother did the same, but he's never gotten the hang of it.

"Are you going to say hello, Taro?"

"Hai, hai," Taro says, waving it off his his left hand while he too crouches down to say hello. "Welcome Imouto, I guess I'll be your ni-chan."

Shoichi smiles and runs each of the boys on the head before picking the basket back up. Yoko sticks her head out of the doorway of their bedroom where their daughter will sleep for the time being.

"Well? Come on, let's get her settled." Yoko insists with a stern expression. He can hear the smile in her voice though, Yoko and himself differ in their dedication to Konoha, but they both love their children. Yoko would not cry on their daughter's grave, but she would mourn in her own way.

Hideo follows doggedly at Shoichi's heel as the basket, and the baby inside, are carried away. Taro settles on the nearby sofa, watching intently.

The medical equipment is all glass and seals. Each slip of sealing paper is worth a B-rank mission - maybe more. Supposedly the Toad Sage himself wrote each of them, made to the Slug Princesses specification. At least that's what Kyomi from the hospital claimed. Inside the glass box Yoko has settled in the blankets and tiny pillow that had previous laid in the crib.

It breaks his heart, just a little.

A short while later all four of them watch as the top of the glass box closes, and Yoko pumps a bit of chakra into the containment seal. It lights up and they all watch as the 15 or so seals light up, one by one. The main seal turns green and they breath a sigh of relief as one.

There is nothing left but to wait. (To see if she lives.)

Chapter 3: D-rank Mission - Shoichi

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The next two days are tense, all five of them in the house. The boys are too young to attend the academy, too young to help. Yoko is retired, and he is reluctant to leave his daughter, in case she dies while he's gone. Some small part of him wonder if Yoko would be willing to interrupt a mission, no matter how small, to let him know that his daughter has died.

Yoko is consistent though, her dedication to Konoha, and to the Will of Fire means that after two days she physical pushes him out the door with the order to help. (He knows that she snuck out the night before to try and help and was immediately sent back home. She should be on bedrest right now, and if attack hadn't meant that the hospitals were full she would probably still be there under the medic's careful eyes.)

The mission desk is full and busy, manned by only a single chunin and a dozen civilians with academy training. Luckily, he knows the chunin, a fellow orphan called Fusao, who gives him a wave as he enters.

"Shoichi! Is your family well?" Fusao pushes his way around the desk and through the crowded line of shinobi. Fusao was unmarried, and proud of it since he took lots of seduction based infiltration mission. He wasn't overwhelmingly attractive but age had done him well. He had long dark hair and dark eyes that allowed him to blend into a crowd, but a cheerful manner and sweet smile that made you feel good. Even Shoichi, who had known Fusao since he was 13, still fell victim to it.

"They are all alive. My daughter is-" Shoichi choked on the words. Fusao nodded, and gave a soft pat of the back.

"You and Yoko are both strong. If she's survived so far then you might be safe." Fusao said softly, Shoichi could hear the doubt in his voice though. No one knew what the effects of the monster's attack would be in the long term.

"Regardless, Yoko's sent me out for a mission." Shoichi gave his best attempt at a sheepish shrug. Yoko was known to be a bit of rough commander, especially when her directions weren't followed. No one of their generations would ever forget the time that a genin ignored her command to get help and ended up rebuilding the entire building on their own.

"Aah yes! Have you gotten checked over by a doctor or medic?" Fusao grinned as they both thought back to the moment. It had been a awe inspiring. She had actually gotten an invitation to Torture and Interrogation (T&I) following that day. It was a rare day that T&I tried to poach from ANBU, but apparently they'd thought her worth it. (She'd turned them down regardless.)

"No, not yet." Shoichi's mock embarrassment turned real as he remembered. He'd planned on doing it after settling his daughter… but them. Well she was just so cute (in that ugly baby way) and Taro and Hideo were both there (usually they would be off running around all day) and Yoko was there too- and he'd just forgotten.

"Well of you go. If they let you come back today you'll be stuck on D-ranks until tomorrow."

"What? Why?" He yelped (quietly), he'd done his time as a genin, why did he have to do them again? "I don't think that's fair." He let out a quiet moan.

"It's orders," Fusao shrugged, "it's supposed to be a punishment for not getting checked more quickly. You've had a week." Then he paused and added, "supposedly."

"Ugh, fine. I'll see you in a bit then," Shoichi said, turned to wade out through the crowd and out of the door.

D-ranks truly were the worst punishment. Given to genin, both because no one else wanted them, and to help with 'team building'. During times of emergency they would be prioritised and removing blood ranked more important than pulling the weeds from some old ladies garden. Even during wartime civilians and genin were the only ones who did D-ranks outside of punishment.

Chakra poisoning being what it was, he didn't exactly have the chakra for a normal mission anyway. To heal chakra poisoning the medic had to use medical chakra to neutralise the dangerous chakra using both the medic and the victim's own chakra. Shoichi's chakra had also been partly destroyed by the demonic chakra, the bubbling, hissing, acidic nature of which overwhelmed his own Yin heavy chakra and eaten away at it. Not that it was dealt with his chakra would begin to regenerate, but that would take time, and until then he would be stuck on lower rank missions.

Nothing of interest happens on D-ranks, which is funny considering the fact that Konoha as a whole, and a few unlucky victims in particular, suffer from the Curse of the C-rank. Perhaps the reason for the curse was that all the interesting things a young shinobi misses while doing D-ranks builds up, and explodes during their first C-rank mission. That's what Shoichi likes to imagine at least.

They're still boring as watching paint dry though.

Notes:

On this chapter is called Health

Chapter 4: Sleeping in Winter - Taro

Chapter Text

I know my sister to be odd. Asano is not odd because she used to cry randomly, or because she loves the sound of the human voice above all else. In fact, I couldn't quite tell you why she is so odd if you asked me straight out.

She just is.

For one, she shouldn't have survived. My Tou-san, nor my Ka-san would ever admit it, but Asano should be dead. I couldn't tell you my explanation for why I knew this. It was a mixture of the many who did not survive. (Yes Tou-san, I can hear you when you talk to Ka-san in the middle of the night. Especially when you're so loud.) I know it for the surprise in the doctor when we brought her in, alive, a month after her birth.

I know it in the way Ka-san treats her differently. More softly.

She's three now. Barely able to toddle about the house. She enjoying going up and down the stairs to mine and Hideo's room. She babbles more than talks, in truth, most of her 'words' no more than random sounds. Instead of putting her a on a 'training schedule' like Ka-san had us do, she encourages Asano to rest when she's tired and sleep often.

I didn't understand why until winter came. The cold crept in through the window and the wood floors became cool to the touch with a whisper of icy breeze freezing my toes. It doesn't snow in Konoha, but if you left the village walls and walked into the forest you would find a fine misting of white dust, that could, if you were feeling generous, be called snow.

Asano gets sick during winter you see. Really, really sick. She starts coughing and her nose starts running. A couple days later her face gets all flushed and then Ka-san makes her stay in bed all day. Asano doesn't cry very often, not since she was a baby, but last month, when the cold first started, she cried a lot. For hours and hours she sobbed out miserable tears and it made Ka-san sad.

Winter sucks.

The air is still cold (it's January! I want it to be warm again!) and I have taken to pumping the slightest amount of chakra to keep warm. I've done my best to keep Ka-san from realising what I was doing since any indicator that I would tolerate (or worse, value ) more training would be taken to the extreme. She would probably make me practice hand signs .

Hideo laughs at me when I complain of such things, but just because he doesn't mind running around in the 'snow' doesn't me I should have to. Hideo always has enjoyed running around far too much. He was so excited to start walking, he would move faster than his legs could keep up. Then he'd fall, of course, but he'd get back up and start running again.

Perhaps the reason Asano seems so strange is that she isn't like me, nor is she like Hideo. I learned to walk in the dead of night so I would do so without Ka-san pushing me. Hideo learned to walk by forcing himself to keep trying, even when his legs weren't ready to hold him. Asano learned to walk by carefully testing herself while held in someone else's arms. Unlike Hideo (and myself, admittedly) she barely even tried to walk until she could crawl better than anyone else around.

Maybe she'll be a perfectionist. That would suck.

At three Asano really should be talking. Ka-san's getting a bit worried, but Asano seems happy enough to babble at us in her own random way. Her first real word was of course 'Oni' since Hideo spent all the time he's at home saying it to her on repeat. (He's now trying to get her to say 'chan' but so far it seems to be a lost cause.)

I told Tou-san that Asano was strange. He laughed at me and said that all babies are strange. That's when he told me how I learned to walk, I don't remember it of course, but I believe him and I can see why I would do it that way. Ka-san is a menace .

Anyway, Tou-san spent ages telling me about how each person is different, so each baby and child is different. Asano might be more different because her brain might be a little bit hurt by the monster attack that made her get born early. (I can't really understand what Ka-san and Tou-san say when they talk about it. I remember the monster attack, a little, but what does that have to do with Asano?)

"Taro! You better be dressed by now!" Oops .

Getting dressed is always rather annoying. It means taking off warm clothing, freezing to death , and then promptly putting on cold clothes. Clothes are stupid anyway. Regardless I pull on a random pair of bottoms and a top. Ka-san hates it when I do that, but it makes Tou-san laugh so I don't mind. (He laughs mostly because I end up with funny outfits like red bottoms and a green top that Tou-san said made us look like our house.)

"Taro!" Ka-san calls again, this time impatient. I go down the stairs, only slightly faster than normal. Hideo and Asano are both already by the door, wrapped up in their winter coats.

"Why are we leaving so early again?"

"It's 9 o'clock, it's not early!" Hideo insists. I, being the mature older brother I am, stick my tongue out at him.

"We are going to go see the doctor to get you all checked up on."

"Why?" Asano chirps, 'why' is her second word. It's driving Ka-san and Tou-san a bit crazy since she still hasn't said their names. She really only says a few things 'Oni', 'Yes', 'No', 'Why', and 'More'. She calls me and Hideo 'Oni' which means I probably need to say 'nii-chan' more so she knows what to actually call me. It sounds like a lot of work.

"Well Taro's almost six now so he'll be starting at the academy soon. Won't you Taro?" Ka-san finishes with a worryingly sharp eyed glance toward me. I haven't quite managed to tell her that I'm not really sure I want to be a shinobi. Sure both Ka-san and Tou-san are, but it sounds like a lot of work, and killing people sounds messy. (Hideo insists that being a shinobi means being a hero, but he's not old enough to remember when Tou-san came home covered in blood. It's my earliest memory actually. It was the end of the war, and that was when Tou-san came home. He'd gotten ambushed I think, I can't quite remember.)

"Can I start the academy too!" Hideo asks, jumping up and down, making his shoes thump on the hardwood floor.

"Hmmm…. I'll tell you what Hideo…" Ka-san smile in that mischievous way that means trouble, "if you can use chakra to make a piece of wood grow, then of course you can start the academy!"

I sigh. Ka-san really wants one of us to be able to use the wood release or 'Mokuton' that her grandfather used. He was the First Hokage, but we're not allowed to tell anyone that. Hideo doesn't know yet 'cause Ka-san said she'll tell him when he turns five. Apparently we're a secret though, no one is supposed to know that she's related to him.

Personally, I think that if one of can use has it, it'll be a huge annoyance. And everyone'll know that we're related to the First Hokage. (That's how Ka-san says it , 'First Hokage' when dad says it, it sounds more like 'the First' or 'Hokage Senju-sama' or even 'first hokage'.)

"I'll do it! I'm gonna go to the academy!" Hideo shouts before opening the door and running outside. Probably to grab a stick to hold on tightly too. Hideo hasn't quite gotten the hang of chakra yet. He claims he can feel it, but I'm not sure I believe him.

Ka-san picks up Asano and I pull on my shoes. I ran out of time to eat breakfast, which sucks, but it was worth the extra sleep I think.

Chapter 5: Hitoro and the Princess - Shoichi

Chapter Text

Yoko is a good mother, despite her sometimes eerie level of devotion to Konoha. She reads stories, trains, and feeds all three of them without complaint, and for that Shoichi is very grateful.

Taking missions is time consuming, exhausting, and dangerous. Most of the time they're pretty run of the mill. Half of mission aren't even out of Fire Country but instead spent patrolling the border or taking care of the spare bandit. Still, it soothes his mind to know that if something happens to him, Yoko will continue to take care of their children.

Beyond that, Asano adores books and stories, and one of his favourite things upon arriving home is listening to her babble about the latest story. She's a bit low in mastering speech but she's almost four and has finally managed to speak at an understable level.

When he gets home this time Asano comes running from out of her room. (It's a tiny space, barely more than a closet but she doesn't need any more at this point in time and it means the boys aren't disturbed by her regular nightmares.)

"Tou! Tou!" She shouts, throwing herself into his arms and causing him to fall back a step.

"Hello darling," he murmurs into her hair, "what did you do today?"

"Ka told me a story! And! And! Uhhhhh-" Asano shouts. She often starts a sentence without having the words to finish it so he waiting for her to gather her thoughts. "The boy. In the story! He! He! He lived before he was him!"

"Huh?" Shoichi glances towards his wife who sends Asano an indulgent smile as she approaches.

"We read Hitoro," She tells Asano, who bobs her head enthusiastically.

"An! An! Hi-to-ro," Asano sounds it out slowly, as if tasting the word, "was an adult, and then he died, and he was born again as a baby!" Shoichi smile and nodded, he remembered the story. It was about a boy who was reincarnated over and over until he was able to save the life of a princess of the blood of Mae. It was a rather cute story with the boy making friends with a princess and eventually saving her life.

"Hitoro was Azuma! Who was Tou?" Azuma being the troublesome nobleman who promised to save the life of a peasant woman named Mae then failed and thus was cursed by a Kami to be unable to rest until he had saved the life of a decedent of Mae who had married into an old samurai family.

"Well I'm not sure," Shoichi started, crouching down to her level, "some people think they know what happens when you die, but I'm not sure."

"You birth!" Asano insisted, grabbing his hand and leading him to the sofa.

"You think you get reborn? That would be called reincarnation, that's what happened to Hitoro." Shoichi settled on the couch and held out his arms for Asano to join him.

"Asano reborn!" She insisted, scrambling onto his lap. Like each of his other children she pushed and hit every delicate part before she managed to settle. Somethings would never change, and getting hit in the stomach by young children seemed to be one of them.

"Oh yeah? Who were you then?" Asano hummed and curled against his chest, her hands seeking his bare flesh. She was always cold and Shoichi tended to act as her person heating unit even if Yoko was always warmer she moved around a good deal more.

"Ummm. Ci-vi-li-an." Asano sat up a bit, and looked around the room, as if looking for how to explain herself better. She often seemed content to be still, but others she refused to sit still. It was starting to look like this time was one of the latter.

"You were a civilian? Well you're a civilian now, how are you different?" He tapped her on the nose with his pointer and smiled at the annoyed face she made. Yoko stood at the edge of the couch and watched with a small smile at Asano.

"Gonna be shinobi!" Asano reached for a lock of hair and tugged it softly.

"Is that so?" Shoichi gently removed her hand and wrapped his arms around her.

"Yep!"

"Is Ka-san going to train you?" He asked looking up at his wife. Then he froze.

She was rubbing a hand over her stomach with a purposeful look at him.

"Ka?" Asano tried to twist to look at her mother.

"Are you?" Shoichi whispered, eyes wide. She nodded. "Are you sure?" Another nod.

"Hey Asano?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you ready to be a big sister?"

"Ummm? Bi-g? Sister?"

"Ka-san is pregnant, you're going to have a little sister or brother."

"Little sister! Little sister!" She pulled herself out of his arms and jumped around the room, "big sister! Little sister!"

The door opened a crack and Taro stuck his head in, only to be pushed, rather roughly in by Hideo.

"Little sister? Ka-san are you pregnant again?" Hideo asked as he pulled off his shoes. Taro sighed and took off his own a little slower.

"I am. I'll be going to the hospital tomorrow to talk to Kyomi-sensei."

"Can I go?" Hideo asked, pulling Yoko into a hug. Asano made one last jump before running over to join him.

"I go?" She added, putting a tiny hand to her mother's stomach.

"No, you are both going to stay here and Taro will watch over you both since your Tou-san and I are both going." Yoko smiled but her voice was not one to argue with. Hideo nodded sadly but Asano pulled on Yoko's hand and shouted,

"I GO!"

"No Asano. No shouting or you'll have to go to your room." Yoko glanced at Shoichi to make sure he knew to stay out of it and he nodded sadly. He always spoiled them whenever he had the chance but Yoko was in charge of the children when she was present, and they both knew it.

"I go?" She tried again, tears gathering in her eyes. He wanted to say 'yeah sure, you can come' but she was his third child, and he knew that he had to be strict. Most of all, he couldn't disagree with Yoko over the children, he would offer an single ryo and they would take 100 yen.

"No Asano. Stop." Yoko took Asano's hands off her and took a step back.

"Little sister?"

"You are getting a little sister, or a brother but you can't come to the hospital with me."

"Why?"

"You'll get sick. And I said so. That's enough, go to your room."

Asano started crying and screaming as she ran to her room but they all knew she would go quiet in a few minutes. She didn't tend towards tantrums like Hideo had, but she was still a small child with all that entailed.

Chapter 6: Children and Duty - Shoichi

Chapter Text

The next morning Shoichi and Yoko left while the children were still asleep. The streets of Konoha never truly slept, but they did quiet down. Uchiha on patrol, shopkeepers opening up, the baker down stairs pulling out loaves of bread.

They walk close to each other, but never touching. To Shoichi, who spent his early years growing up outside of Konoha, it still seems odd, but people here never touch in public. It had been the cause of a fight early in their relationship. Yoko is, and always has been a very private person, and for the most part Shoichi was happy to respect that, it had been hard when they had first started dating though.

Now, with years of marriage and three children, they're more comfortable with each other. They married just before Taro was born, so almost 7 years now? Maybe a little more?

"Taro will be starting at the academy soon, won't he?" He asks, watching as a stray cloud drifts across the sharp blue sky. The air is crisp and cool still, though it will likely warm up later.

"Indeed. Hideo wants to go with him." Yoko mentions it in such an off handed way it takes Shoichi a moment to process it.

"What do you think?" He finally asks, each word creeping out of his mouth reluctantly. Yoko knows the children better than him, but he still wonders: if she had to choose between her children and Konoha, who is she most loyal to. (Some part of him know, is quite sure in fact, that her first devotion will always be to Konoha. Still, he has hope.)

"Hideo isn't as mature as Taro, but he's much more enthusiastic about it. I think it could be good for them both to attend at the same time. I am worried it would cause them to be overly dependant on each other though. There's no way they would end up on the same genin team, and that could be a terrible disappointment." Yoko says, pausing between every sentence as she looks around. Sometimes she reminds him of Yoshiko, for all that they are very little alike.

He remembers Yoshiko's fury when they had been put on different genin teams. Yoko, who was already a genin and soon to become a chunin, had been less than sympathetic at the time.

He swallows away the knot in his throat and blinks away the heat in his eyes and tries to return to the present. (Her hair, ruffled by the summer breeze-)

"Kyomi-sensei is available, just head on up. Ah- Misomi can walk you there," the receptionist gives a winning smile and waves over a young trainee.

"Thank you," Shoichi says when Yoko turns to leave without a word. The walk to Kyomi's office is quiet, and grows increasingly tense as they approach. There is always a feeling of nerves when Yoko is pregnant, but it feels like there is an extra edge in the air.

Maybe he's just being paranoid.

"Back again already you two?" Kyomi asks with a smile as she welcomes them in. The trainee (Misee? Miomi? Something like that.) gives a tight smile and heads back to whatever she was doing before. "Hold old's your youngest? No more than four or five if I remember correctly," Kyomi asks with a smile and gesture for them both to sit down.

"Three, for now at least."

"Yes of course. How is she? She's under Arata-sensei isn't she?"

"Indeed," Yoko says, her face softening at the thought of her children, "so far she's doing okay. She's gotten a loud stronger over the past year so we're holding this winter will be better."

"No developmental difficulties so far? Has her chakra started to become active yet? Your other two did so fairly young didn't they?"

"Taro started using chakra at five and Hideo at three and half, but no, Asano has yet to start using it." Shoichi says with a fond sigh. There's an old genin tale that your first use of chakra can show your area of strength. It's complete nonsense of course, but it's fun to see anyway.

Taro first used chakra to stick to his bed when Yoko tried to pick him up. Hideo, who actually did it first, used it to jump high enough to reach to sweets on the top shelf.

"Actually," Yoko says slowly, "I'm not sure if she's using it yet. But I think it'll be soon. She's been complaining of itchiness on her stomach…"

"Oh?" Shoichi's eyes widen, he hadn't heard anything about that.

"That's great," Kyomi says with a bright smile, "just keep in mind that her development might not match that of your other children. As I'm sure Arata-sensei has mentioned, we don't have any previous data to reference so we have no real idea of how her birth will affect her."

"Yes," Shoichi replies with a tight smile, "we know." It had been all they were told for months and months.

"Great! Now let's get you check out here!"

Shoichi watched as the seal turned bright blue and started to leak across the page, slowly making an image out of indistinct blobs. It didn't really look like anything to him, but it seemed to mean something to Kyomi.

"Sakurai-san," Kyomi starts, looking at Yoko, "have you taken part in any missions since the birth of your daughter?"

"No? Why?"

"Have you done anything chakra strenuous since them?"

"Not particularly."

"Did you get treatment for chakra poisoning after The Attack?"

The room is silent.

"No," Yoko admits. Kyomi looks away from the indistinct image and straightens up.

"My professional suggestion is that you have an abortion. You will never be able to have children again either way. To keep the pregnancy… You could be crippled, or at worst, die. If you have an abortion today then you might be able to return to active duty eventually."

"And- And the ch- fetus?" Yoko asks, her face pale and her hand twitching helplessly at her side.

"Even if you try to keep it? The child is at risk of a malformed chakra network. Unlike your daughter this is affecting your child as it develops and is likely to pass on any deformations to their own children."

The room is quiet and Shoichi finally asks,

"Can we wait to decide?" Kyomi sighs and runs a hand over her head, over the hair pulled into a right bun.

"Yes? I don't recommend waiting very long. A week, maybe two at most. The demonic chakra has already gathered in your womb." Kyomi says, then she glances at the bright blue paper before adding, "If you go through with the pregnancy you'll spend the last couple of months on bed rest. There have been cases of pregnancy when the mother has chakra poisoning. But. Never with demonic chakra. I can't make any guarantees of you, or your child's safety."

Yoko and Shoichi shared a glance as Yoko set up.

"We'll need to think about this," Shoichi said, and walked with Yoko to the door. He didn't want to hover, but she was looking rather pale.

"I understand, please come back with a decision as soon as possible." Kyomi says from the doorway with an annoying sad look.

There are few places in Konoha where you have a good chance a privacy, but that is one of the things you accept as a Konoha resident. Most civilians are barely even aware of it. Shoichi was acutely aware of it as they walked back through the street. He could guess where she way guiding.

There is a place on top of the Hokage monument that visitors never get to see. Presumably ANBU are aware that it exist and sometimes look it over, but listening devices (rare and expensive though they are, are used occasionally) can't hear anything over the wind. You can also see most of Konoha from there.

Yoshiko told him this was where Hashirama and Madara stood when they decided to build Konoha. She said it like that, Hashirama. Madara. Yoko used to go crazy over how informal she was. Shoichi let a deep sigh clear his head and looked towards his wife.

When they got married he had promised, 'it's your body, and I will never try to control it', it had been his way of saying 'I don't mind if we don't have kids'. Now, although reluctantly, he felt he had to say it again.

"Yoko," he murmured quietly in the morning air, Konoha was finally starting to awaken and the first signs of city life had started to show. "It is you body, it always has been, whatever you choose I will respect and support. But-" But Yoko had a tendency to sacrifice herself. To value herself too little. "If we want more children we can adopt. And three is a perfectly respectable brood of children!"

"Sho, it's about blood. I am the last person to pass on the blood of the main line of Senju. There are tons of people with Senju blood but not the name, but they won't stop the clan from dying. Tsunade-hime is already in her late 40s, she's not going to have children." She quieted as they left the main part of the city and started walking up the path the Hokage Cliff.

"Do you think our children will be welcomed as the new Senju clan?" Shoichi finally asked, disbelief perhaps a little too raw in his voice. Perhaps a little jealous because, no matter how unlikely to was to their Senju blood to be accepted, his own Nara blood was even less likely. His father had promised.

The breeze around them sped up in a light wind and the early light of sunrise descended upon the Hokage Monument like a spotlight. Yoko turned to him, almost hesitantly.

"I know they will be accepted." Shoichi froze. "Before she left… before Tsunade-hime left she sent me a letter. Upon her death my line will be recognised as the new Senju clan."

"What." Shoichi's voice was barely a whisper. A silent sigh at the betray before him.

"Our children will be the start of a new Senju clan. And it is my duty to pass on the Senju line as much as I can. And Asano is fine! Maybe our new child would be lucky and be fine!" The cold devotion to duty Yoko held gave way to desperation.

"Kyomi already said that was unlikely. And you could die . Where would our children be then? I would have to take missions and if I died? Then where would they be? The orphanage!"

The wind paused briefly and Shoichi heard her voice, soft and heartbroken.

"I am going to have this child." The wind sped up and whistled by his ears, he barely heard her final words. "It is my duty."

Chapter 7: Bets and Bias - Taro

Chapter Text

I couldn't say why exactly, but the house is tense these days. Ka-san acts mostly the same as ever, and same with Tou-san. But something seems different.

Hideo and Asano don't seem to notice but Ka-san and Tou-san are acting funny with each other. Maybe Tou-san doesn't want to have another baby? Maybe he feels like he never gets any attention with all the new babies? That's how Hideo said he felt.

Hideo's been acting funny to actually. He keeps trying to make a stick grow because Ka-san said he can join me at the academy if he does. It's not working, but Hideo keeps insisting he's getting 'better' or 'closer' each time stares intently at a stick clutched in his hand.

He's putting a lot of work into it.

Asano is fun to play with now because she doesn't mind if I don't want to run around like Hideo does. Also, Hideo stops getting mad at me for laying around when Asano is laying with me. She always wants me to tell her stories and she asks a lot of questions, but she doesn't get upset if I don't answer.

She asks a lot of questions though.

"Why the sky blue, Oni?" Asano asks, with rather convenient timing. Ka-san is taking them to the park. Usually she doesn't leave the house very often, the neighbours don't like her very much, but Asano wanted to come and she's still too little to be left alone. Or maybe it's something about Asano because I'd swear Hideo was allowed to come with me when he was three.

"I'm not sure why the sky is blue. Maybe it's the ocean reflecting on it. Or maybe it's because the Great Sage painted it blue."

"Who the Grape Sage?"

"Great Sage. And he's the guy who invented ninjutsu and chakra."

"In-ve-nt chakaa?"

"Invent chakra," I say slowly. Hideo never needed me to say words slowly, but Asano always does.

"Oh!" Asano chirps, looking excited, "what chakaa?"

"Chakra. Cha-ka-ra. It's ahhh- I'm not sure. Ka-san can tell you better but it's what keeps you alive and let's shinobi do cool things."

"Ka! Ka! What chakaa?" Asano asks, running up to reach their her as she walks with Hideo. Yoko turns and smiles, but it looks wrong.

"Chakra is the lifeforce that every living thing has. It's a mixture of physical and spiritual chakra. Your ka-san has a lot of physical energy, and your Tou-san has lots of spiritual energy, so all of you will be very strong!"

"I strong!" Asano shouts with a smile as Yoko lifts her up. Asano's kinda small. Maybe it's just that I haven't realised how much Hideo's grown since he was three, but she looks pretty small.

"Not yet you aren't," Ka-san says, tickling Asano's stomach lightly. I run up to Hideo, I don't need to watch Ka-san favour Asano any more.

"Are you still working on the stick?" I ask in way of greeting. Of course he's working on the stick. It's a bit silly because neither of us have conscious control of our chakra yet, so even if Hideo did have the ability to make his stick grow with chakra, he wouldn't be able to do it until he could move his chakra on purpose.

"Yeah, I think I've almost got it!" Hideo says with a bright smile. It sounds like great news except for the fact that he's been saying it since a week after he started trying.

"That's great. Now what do you think, is Ka-san going to have a girl or a boy?"

"I dun know? Why?"

"I bet she has a boy."

"Okay? So?"

"So if she has a boy you have to clean my room for a week."

"And if she has a girl?"

"Uh… then I'll?"

"Then you'll clean my room for a week!"

"That's not-"

"It's perfect! I can't wait to find out!"

The worst part was the Hideo was being completely genuine. There was a two out of three chance that the kid was a boy. Since ka-san had already had three kids and two of them were boys, a boy was more likely. That said, Hideo's room was always a mess. It wasn't even that he never cleaned his room - he did, once a week when Ka-san made us, but it immediately got messy again.

Cleaning his room for a week would take all week. (No time for thinking! Or reading! Or naps!)

Chapter 8: Fourth Child - Shoichi

Chapter Text

On May 1st after months of awkward silences as Yoko and Shoichi try to ignore the expanding swell of her stomach, her water breaks. Shoichi isn't there when it happens, but Taro tells him about it between sobs. Because Yoko's water breaks and then vicious demonic chakra fills the air and she screams .

As they sit in the hospital with all three of his children curled around him, all three of them crying Asano stutters out that it was 'scary' and Hideo murmurs that 'Ka-san sounded bad. Hurt.' Taro did his best to keep them calm and get the attention of one of the Uchiha in patrol in the area. (As much as the Uchiha are no one's favourite clan are still better than telling your children to flag the ANBU when they need help get their mother to the hospital.)

Shoichi came back from a mission to find a notice waiting for him upon arrival. There are no words to describe the feeling, like being stabbed in the shoulder with a sword and realising it was poisoned.

He thought she was dead.

Instead he found all three of his children sitting, alone, outside of a hospital room that you can hear the wails of pain through. He doesn't even try to enter to room. He won't be welcome anyway, and his wife is strong. His children need him now.

"I'm here now," he says, and his kids look up to him and Asano throws herself at him and buries her head in his rough mission clothes. Hideo follows soon after, but Taro does his best to pull himself upright and dry his eyes. "It's okay. Can you tell me what happened?" He murmurs as he sits and pulls them all close.

"Ka-san- she- Her water broke," Taro starts, sniffling.

"Ka-sa!" Asano wails, tiny hands rubbing snot up and down her face. The other people waiting in the hallways are no doubt annoyed by he cannot find it within him to care. His children are crying . Now children cry all the time, they get genuinely upset over the stupidest things. This is different though, because he wants to be crying too.

Taro, over the next several minutes, explains that the Uchiha called for backup and then took Yoko to the hospital without them. Understandable because Konoha is incredibly safe, even for young children. Then when backup arrived, they took the kids to the hospital. The kids haven't gotten to see Yoko since the Uchiha took her though and they're all worried she's dead.

"I'll go speak with Kyomi-sensei, the doctor looking after Ka-san, okay?" Shoichi said, trying to give a reassuring smile in reply to their teary nods. He knocks on the door before entering and closing the door behind him.

The room is in pandemonium. There's a lingering feeling of pressure and it makes him think of the demon attack. Kyomi is working with several nurses to remove the child by digging through Yoko's organs.

It's terrifying to watch. Yoko is awake, but behind a curtain so she can't see what's happening. They must have given her some strong drugs because she doesn't seem to feel the breeze from the door against her upper intestine.

Kyomi had been clear that there was a chance they would need to manually remove the child from Yoko's womb but watching it happen is very different. Shoichi's seen his fair share of dismembered and gutted bodies, but usually they aren't still alive, and usually they don't belong to his wife.

Yoko is still alive, and though he can't see her through the curtain he can hear her growl in a low voice to someone. He's about to go back out to tell the children their ka-san is okay when Kyomi glances back and sees him.

"Go to your wife," she says before turning back to the nurses and whatever it is she's doing. He doesn't want to interrupt her nods before leaving to reassure the children.

Less than an hour later he's standing next to his wife, the children are outside still, and Kyomi sighs.

"I've done what I can. You and the child will both live. Congratulations, it's girl." Any possible joy that should be in the statement has been drained by hours of surgery and Kyomi's lingering feelings that Yoko made the wrong choice to keep the child. An opinion which has become increasingly clear since the start of the pregnancy.

Kyomi sighs and Shoichi is reminded of the various risks that were already established when the chakra that poisoned the mother didn't belong to a demon.

"You'll never walk again," Kyomi says with an air of finality, "you no longer have a functional womb, so you'll never have children again, and the demonic chakra burned through your chakra channel, so you'll never use chakra in the lower half of your body again."

Kyomi's usual friendly demeanor had diminished since they had decided to keep the child to the point of almost icy civility. Her tone said something of 'congratulations, everything went exactly as I told you it would, I hope you're happy,'

"Thank you Kyomi, may I hold my daughter," Yoko says, white as lily and shining with a sheen of sweat.

"Yes of course," Kyomi nodded, features softening ever so slightly. She grabbed the bundle from one of the nurses and handed it over.

"Shoichi, meet your daughter, Kimiko." Yoko says quietly, both of them looking intently at her adorable smashed face.

Chapter 9: Community - Shoichi

Chapter Text

The Sakurai family was not particularly well respected in the community. Yoko was known for being a coward who escaped her rightful time on the frontlines using back to back pregnancy. Shoichi was thought badly of for never 'controlling his wife' (civilians were idiots) and being too informal (again - idiots).

Active shinobi almost never used suffix, with the exception of the Hyuuga and the Uchiha. Everyone knew the Uchiha believed others below them, and the Hyuuga were extraordinarily reserved.

Taro, who had just turned seven, was too lazy. Hideo, who was five and a half, was too loud. Asano, who was four was born on an inauspicious day (yes, they actually complained about that) and asked too many questions. Kimiko, all of a week and a half old, "shouldn't have been born in the first place" according one judgmental old fart.

(Shoichi was not one to get upset, but he had needed to take a few deep breaths after hearing that because harming civilians could get him sent to prison or even executed - Konoha took their reputation as safe to civilians very seriously.)

Asano in particular was excited about Kimiko, and Taro was surprisingly disappointed by having another little sister. Hideo seemed… almost smug? Children were confusing.

Hideo and Taro often paired up, only a year and a half, and while Asano and Hideo were a year apart…

Asano was a little bit behind developmentally. It wasn't that Asano wasn't intelligent, her actions were often surprisingly deliberate, and she had a strangely good sense of colour theory when she made artwork. She was clumsy and struggled at speaking coherently. She often mixed up the order of her words and had difficulty with several different sounds.

Children were each unique though, and Shoichi had to remind himself of this often. He regularly attributed Asano's actions or behaviour to her birth, but if Taro and Hideo each had their idiosyncrasies.

Hideo loved tree climbing, forest, grass, and nature in basically every form. When he was little, he would cry, and cry, and cry. The only way to have him quiet would be to walk around the edge of the Konoha forest, or better yet, Senju Hashirama's grove. Shoichi personally suspected Hideo was a slight sensor and enjoyed the nature chakra that Konoha's forest were thick with.

Taro showed his Senju blood in the strangest ways. For one, his chakra was amazingly thick, though he was much more likely to able to use the Nara's shadow technique's than Hashirama's wood release. Shoichi had only felt it once, and had never told Yoko, but it was almost like a liquid.

For another, his hair was not actually the same shade as the Nara, but of Hashirama. He hadn't known this until Yoko told him, she remembered from her early childhood pictures of Hashirama. In modern times most people thought of blonde hair like the Slug Sannin's the represent the Senju clan, but most of the members actually had brown and black hair. Hideo's blond hair came from Shoichi's mother after all.

For all that Shoichi wasn't sure Yoko had made the right choice in keeping the pregnancy, he didn't regret Kimiko. Even when he had to feed her every two hours because Yoko still couldn't navigate with her wheelchair in the dark. Even he had to find a way for Yoko to get up and down the stairs with her wheelchair. Even when she spit on his chunin vest just before he had to leave.

The first few months after Kimiko's birth were still hard.

Taro started at the academy in the spring session without Hideo, which was hard for both of them. Yoko in particular, but all of them, were getting used to her wheelchair and it's constraints. Asano wasn't used to being a middle child and was continually annoyed by the lack of attention (but she was adjusting faster than Taro and Hideo had).

There was more crying in their house in the six months after Kimiko's birth than there had been since- well. Shoichi couldn't think of a time.

Then things got worse again because something happened between Hideo and Taro but neither would say what and he didn't have the time to try and figure it out. Hideo was coming home with chakra exhaustion, which- what? Purposeful chakra usage wasn't taught until the second year of the academy and Taro was still in his first term, and Taro wasn't even the one using his chakra!

He probably wouldn't have even noticed if Asano hadn't tried to sneak out with them causing him to notice how tired Hideo looked. Then he had to give all three of them a lecture on the risks of chakra exhaustion he wasn't sure any of them understood and he was about ready to pull out his hai-

He was almost thankful for the mission. Almost.

Chapter 10: Growth - Taro

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I've only just turned eight, and Hideo is a month and a half from turning seven when he manages to make a stick grow.

It's a pretty anti-climatic really. We're in the park, as usual. I'm watching the other kids run around and play and Hideo is sitting next to me, staring intently at a stick. The first time it works, I don't even notice. Then Hideo, unable to do anything problematic without getting me involved, taps me repeatedly on the shoulder, hard enough that I fall to the side.

"What?"

"Looklooklook!"

That is when he makes the stick grow. Just a little. Just a tiny, two centimetre sprout out of the side. Still, he has undeniably made the wood grow.

Then he has the audacity to be shocked when I knock the stick out of his hand.

"Quiet!" I hiss as I pull him to the trees. Hideo is almost two years younger than me (alright a year and a half - close enough) and he's never been the brightest kid. Don't get me wrong, he's smart. He just don't think things through. He looks at the little picture while it's my job to look at the big picture.

"What're you doing?!" Hideo near on shrieks as I pull him to the abandoned grove. "We can't go in here! It's haunted!"

"No it's not," I wave off, "that's just so that people don't come here. Mostly teenagers come in here together. You just don't notice 'cause you're busy doing other stuff."

"Well why are we here anyway? We need to go tell Ka-san so I can come to the academy with you!" Hideo says, looking genuinely shocked. Sometimes I wonder how my brother can be such. an. idiot.

"Didn't Ka-san tell you that people can't know we're related to the first hokage?" I say, trying to sound patient. I'm mostly failing.

"Yeah? So? We only have to tell Ka-san, it can still be a secret!" Hideo insists, he pulls his hand out of mine so he can cross his arms.

"So you weren't just doing it in a public space where anyone can see us?" The vast expanse of the problem is starts to reveal itself to me and I groan. "Look Hideo, do you remember when the Snake Sannin abandoned the village?"

"No?"

"Neither do I." Hideo looks confused so I add, "I was too little, but I hear about it sometimes." The things you hear when people think you're asleep. "He stole children! If he could do it and still be a respected public figure for years-"

"Respected public figure? Everyone knows he's evil!" Hideo says, voice getting loud enough for me to wince.

"No, they don't. Most kids don't even know about him." I explain, "Ka-san told us about him right? Most people's mother's don't warn them."

"Why not?" Hideo asks as he wanders toward a tree.

"The Snake Sannin was obsessed with power, and the Senju were known as the strongest clan ever." Well okay, I don't know exactly why, but I can figure it out. Ka-san maybe didn't say it, but I can figure it out.

"Oh! So… if…" Come Hideo! You can do it! Think it through! "If I can make trees grow what does that have to do with the Senju." I avoid facepalming (it makes Hideo upset) but only barely.

"Making trees grow is the Senju kekkei genkei. Therefore, if you have the kekkei genkei you are obvious related to the Senju and have one of the strongest kekkei genkei that Konoha has ever had!"

"Is this something you learned at school?" Hideo asks, narrowing his eyes.

"No!" I shout, throwing my arms up in the air, then I pause and lower them slowly. "Okay, it might not be obvious to you. Ka-san warned us about the Snake Sannin and even showed us his picture in the Bingo book right?"

"Yeah?"

"And Tou-san warned us that just because some is strong doesn't mean they're good." I say, trying to lay out each piece of evidence is exhausting. There are so many different pieces.

"Yeah?"

" And Ka-san told us about the first Hokage who, and I quote 'was the strongest shinobi to ever live since the time of the Great Sage'."

" Yeah? "

"She also said that a great deal of his power was attributed to his ability to use the kekkei genkei known as mokuton." I pause, if I have to be this clear maybe I better spell everything out. "You know that the mokuton is making wood do what you want with chakra right?"

"Oh! Uh- Yeah! I knew that!"

"Right," I sigh and rest my lower face in my hand. It's as close to a facepalm as I can get without offending him.

"I get it!" Hideo lights up, "so if I have the same power as the First Hokage some people might think that I'm as strong as him and the Snake Sannin might kidnap me!"

"...Basically." It's almost right. Close.

"So… I have to keep it a secret?"

"Exactly."

"Even from Ka-san and Tou-san?"

" Yes ."

"Why?"

"You aren't very good at it yet, so it's not very useful. Ka-san's hurt and Tou-san's busy. They can't protect you if someone wants to steal you away so telling them would only make them upset." Well. It would make Tou-san upset. Ka-san still thinks Konoha is amazing and perfect.

"So you want me to keep it a secret until I'm good at it?"

"Yes."

"But- but if I do that then I can't go to school with you!" Hideo cries out. I frown, that's right. I wasn't sure about what to do about it though.

"Only until you're good at it. As soon as you're good at it then you can tell them and come to the academy." It's taken him years to make a stick grow. Without a teacher it'll take years to improve too much, and by that time he'll be eight and able to join me anyway.

"Fine! Then I'm gonna learn how to do it now! "

It turns out that children don't have very much chakra. Also using the mokuton uses a lot of chakra. Also, Hideo's not a very good judge of when he's out of chakra. Good to know.

Notes:

MWAHHH HAH AHAHhAHAHAHA

Chapter 11: Secrets - Taro

Chapter Text

Hideo, reluctantly, doesn't tell Tou-san or Ka-san, but Asano finds out surprisingly fast. She sees us come in as we run up stairs so Ka-san doesn't notice that Hideo is covered in scratches from passing out. Ka-san still can't get her wheelchair upstairs so it's Asano's job to be her mouthpiece, and that includes letting us know that dinner's ready.

The next morning she tries to follow us out the door, but Tou-san catches her. Luckily he doesn't say anything about the fact that Hideo looks like he lost three sparring matches in a row despite it being morning and myself being completely disinterested in fighting. (Why am I becoming a shinobi again?)

After I finish at the academy Hideo is waiting for me outside the gate. I ignore the usual crowds and unattended children as we make our way to the 'haunted' forest. This, in the end, is my downfall. I'm sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree offering 'moral support' to Hideo while he puts his hand against a tree and tries to push chakra into it. I'm almost asleep when Hideo succeeds in making a twig sprout and Asano jumps out from behind a bush.

I would normally notice such a thing- no actually. I wouldn't damn. It's really only made worse by the fact that the academy is really long and I have to spend all day resisting the urge to shout at Uchiha Miko that I'm the descendant of a founding clan too!

"I knew it!" She shouts, pointing a finger at Hideo.

"Ahhhh!" Hideo shouts. Because he's an idiot. He promptly rips the twig off the tree and hides it behind his back. Because that's not suspicious at all.

"Oh no," I say, deadpan, "you've caught me. I'm having a nap. In a forest." Asano glances at me in annoyance before turning back to Hideo. Shame, it would have been funny if she'd fallen for it.

"I'm not an idiot! You're doing something interesting!" She insists looking as if she's just caught us in a huge conspiracy instead of being vaguely aware that something is happening.

"Well yeah?" Hideo attempts to taunt her, but mostly he just looks confused. "Good for? you?" He trails off and even Asano raises an eyebrow. (She only just mastered raising an eyebrow at five and is very proud of it. It's super cute.)

"And what, exactly, did you catch us doing?" I ask, sending her a pointed look. There is no evidence of anything interesting, even if Hideo hadn't ripped off the twig, it was a twig, on a tree.

"I! I'm not. I'm not really sure." Asano admits, before adding, "but it looks like you're sneaking around so if you don't let me in on it I'll tell Ka-san!" Damn.

"Fine. Just sit down." I say, and wave for her to come sit down. "Do you want to join us Hideo or are you going to get back to practicing?" Hideo almost jumps at the realisation that he's 'wasting time' and turns back to the newly mutilated tree. (And the twig - lost so young.)

"So what're you doing?" Asano asks, throwing herself onto my lap and making me wheeze. Because really she's the devil even if she pretends otherwise.

"Hideo has a special power. He can make wood grow using chakra-"

"HIDEO HAS THE MOKUTON!" Asano shrieks, then she pauses, and more quietly adds, "is he gonna get taken away? I don't want him to get taken away." She looks quite upset at the thought and I sent a purposeful look at Hideo's back. She got it.

"No, Hideo's not going to be taken away. That's why we're keeping it a secret, and that's why you can't tell anyone, because he might get taken away if you do." Asano looks shocked at the idea and puts her hands over her mouth, supposedly signalling her silence.

"Does this mean we're sharing secrets?" Asano asks a few minutes later, sounding curious and not at all like one who is (seemingly) offering their secrets should.

"If you want to," I say, because what sort of secrets could a five year old have. Asano's odd, it really cannot be denied, but she's five. Five years old is practically a baby. Asano looks up at me and stares intently for a minute.

"I don't think you're taking this se-ri-ou-s-ly." She sounds out the word like she can't remember how to say it all the sudden. She does that sometimes. Usually with the more complicated words but not always. One time she called me by a random series of sound as if she forgot what my name was and just put a random one in its place.

"I'm not." I admit and turn back to my thoughts. Whatever else she says is lost as I wander through my memories and try to piece interesting things together. Like, I think Tou-san had a sibling. Maybe.

Chapter 12: Trust - Taro

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Hideo starts at the academy at age 8, supremely frustrated by his perceived failure. Apparently that means that it's now Asano's turn to cry loudly at being left alone. Since she found out about Hideo's mokuton she's been around a lot more often and is upset when Ka-san says she can't start at the academy under any circumstances until she's eight.

I can understand why, she still gets sick during winter and although each year is better than the last, she isn't as good at speaking as Hideo was at her age. She's also a little lazy, and weird. As we spend more time together it becomes increasingly obvious that whatever secret she offered to share was a lot more interesting than I assumed.

That said, it's been over a year since then so I rather missed that opportunity. I'm starting my fourth session at the academy, there's two session each year. Hideo's starting his first. I'll be in my last year, second to last session by the time that Asano starts and Hideo will be almost halfway done.

Asano was born on October 10th so she can either start a little young in the Autumn session, or little late in the Spring session. She's pushing to be allowed to start during the Autumn session which is only a year a bit to go. Maybe she'll be able to convince Ka-san to let her start in this coming spring term, but that would require her to stay healthy through the winter. Ka-san would never suggest Asano not be a shinobi, it's basically unthinkable, but letting her join early? That's a different story entirely.

Ka-san doesn't talk about it much, but I'm pretty sure Ka-san knew someone who graduated early. Or maybe it's because she grew up in a war, I can barely remember the time before Konoha was at peace - I was only three when the war ended after all, but I can vaguely remember a series of caskets going up to be burned. I don't remember how many or when this happened. But. I remember a tiny casket, no teenager would fit in it. Maybe they weren't even a shinobi. Maybe they were a civilian casualty. Maybe that was the only casket size available. I don't know the story. Really it's not even worth getting upset about. (So why do I feel so angry and sad and furious anyway.)

Some part of me hates Konoha. I don't want to be a shinobi. I don't want Hideo, or Asano to be shinobi either. I don't want Kimiko or Tou-san to be shinobi. Shinobi die. I. I don't want my family to die.

(Am I evil for being l glad my mother can never return to active duty? For being glad she will never take another step under her own power?)

Asano is not happy with being left alone with Ka-san and Kimiko. Kimiko, at a year and a half old, still takes a lot of work, and Ka-san hasn't coped well with being restricted to a wheelchair. Asano has moved into the bedroom I used to just share with Hideo, and it's getting a bit crowded.

Asano isn't as messy as Hideo, and is pretty good at taking care of her own stuff, but she hates not having any time to herself. Which, now that Hideo and I are at school the whole time, she'll have plenty of.

And really, all I have to say to her is:

"But what about me?" I have to go to school all day. They make me take part in sparring. Uchiha Mito is more insufferable than ever since she got to move up to the year ahead and is planning on graduating at the end of this term. Because it's not enough to be part of a famous and recognised clan but she also has to go and graduate early too.

The academy, by the way, is the worst sort of stupid. All the history lessons are 'oh Konoha did awesome at this' or 'Oh the Hokage is so perfect' I didn't mind in the start, but to be honest every word they say for Konoha makes me like it less.

I don't mind as much with Hideo coming with me though.

We're in different classes so we don't see each other all the time, but lunchtimes we get to spend together, and we both know most of the teachers. It's a lot better than when I was alone for sure. A couple weeks ago a teacher actually asked me if I wanted to take part in the kunoichi class... which I said no to, obviously. (Why would I want more work?)

Regardless, I love Hideo being here, I don't love the fact that teachers have started to compare me to him. 'Oh Taro!' they explain, like the sycophants they are, 'why can't you take part in lessons like your brother?' as if the fact that, no matter how much I love Hideo, he's not as clever as I am. It's nothing against him, and there's nothing great about being smart, mostly it just annoying. The thing is, they tell you what the answer to every question is. It's not even worth participating it's such a joke.

As the year goes on it gets worse because the academy always starts simple things like making sure everyone knows how to read (look kanji is hard) and everyone knows the shinobi code (which is utter nonsense).

Really if I was Hokage I would do a much better job.

Seeing the Hokage speak in front of the students was weird. He's old. For some reason I hadn't expected that. It was that day that I realised. The Hokage is human. And this. This is disturbing because The Hokage (capital letters) is a god. A genius. Perfection in a human form. The Hokage can Do No Wrong and Is Always Right. But.

But the Hokage is an old man. A tired, sad, old man with a face lined like a wrinkled piece of paper. His eyes are not wise and omnipotent, but sunken in and have deep bruises beneath them. The Hokage that I saw was not The Hokage. He was a human being, and if he's a human being then he can make mistakes.

I'm not sure I can trust his decisions. (Who lets a man old enough to be a grandfather run a Hidden Village?) And If I can't trust his decisions, well whose decisions can I trust?

Ka-san's? Well. No. Of course not. Ka-san has faith in the village above all else, and she also must have done something wrong to lose use of her legs.

Tou-san? Probably not. I love him, but he's emotional. Don't get me wrong, emotions are great, I have them and so does everyone else. But. (There's that word again: but) But his decisions are too often based on how he feels. He thinks that Asano is the most adorable child ever and, don't get me wrong, she's not as ugly as Mito Uchiha, but she also a bit. Odd. As I have mentioned. And Ka-san notices. I know she does, but Tou-san doesn't.

Asano asks questions on topics she has no right to even be thinking about? Well the Nara were known for being smart. (And yes, I am aware that Tou-san is related to the Nara. What do you think I am? An idiot. Watching Tou-san choose to go to a different restaurant than the head of Nara clan is there is one thing. Talking - rather loudly - to Ka-san about it in the middle of the night is another.)

Here's the thing that only Asano has even started to realise (and hey, maybe this is part of the reason I know she's weird) I sleep all day long. I sleep through breakfast (regularly), through lessons (actually everyday without fail), through the afternoon (the 'haunted' forest doesn't have any particularly interesting features but I am genuinely concern Hideo would disappear if I left him alone.) I sleep all day long. I don't sleep much at night though.

I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure why I do it. I just. Well I always have, as long as I remember. And the night is better than the day anyway. The dark is soothing while the light is harsh. I couldn't enjoy the warmth of my bed if I was asleep. And on the nights that I sneak out, you can learn so many interesting things as night. (I'll admit, I don't sneak out often - the ANBU are terrifying.)

I don't think I trust anyone else. Not even Asano, because for all that she is surprisingly good at learning things I would rather remain hidden, she's six.

Notes:

This chapter comes to you early thanks to the wonderful and helpful comments of TheOne320 on .

Comments are always welcome and strongly encouraged (and may sometimes lead to early updates!)

Chapter 13: Change - Taro

Chapter Text

Despite Tou-san's greatest attempts (mostly limited to 'please' and 'students who are younger than their peers do worse on average') Asano joined the academy during the Autumn term. Notably with something like six clan heirs. Which was ridiculous.

Tou-san's objection mostly stemmed from the fact that Shikamaru Nara, heir to the Nara clan, would be in the class. Not that he said those words out loud. Hideo and Kimiko were the only ones who were really fooled by it though. And I'm not completely sure when it comes to Kimiko.

On her first day we walked as a pack, myself, Hideo, and Asano riding on Tou-san's shoulders.

I figured, it was fated for us to 'just happen to' meet with Shikamaru and Shikaku Nara. It's just about exactly as awkward as you imagine it would be.

In part because Shikamaru didn't even know who we were. Which considering that as far as I can tell, Tou-san has his illegitimacy as a staple in Who He Is as person, it's a little insulting. To him at least.

Asano seemed excited to meet a new person, but also a bit shy. She was fidgeting and clearly wanted to do something and instead was just watching. Tou-san looked incredibly tense, which, considering he's a trained shinobi who's been taught to hide all his feelings forever, is almost impressive. Hideo, as usual, wasn't entirely sure why Tou-san seemed so upset all the sudden.

Alright, maybe I'm treating Hideo as stupider than he is, but I swear he's getting dumber each day he goes to school. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, it wouldn't make sense for the chunin teachers to be idiots independently. Clearly school actually makes you stupider and therefore I remain smarter than my peers (including stupid Mito Uchiha even if she has already graduated) because I never pay any attention at all in lessons.

On the other side of the conversation, Shikaku seemed mostly awkward, and maybe a touch embarrassed? Unlike Tou-san, he wasn't too upset to restrain himself so I'll admit that I'm not exactly sure. Shikamaru just showed bland confusion and a heavy sense of apathy. This is partly explained by the pillow that he was holding in an iron grip.

I can't say much about Shikaku-san, but Shikamaru seems to be a clever fellow at least.

Eventually Asano gets bored of the mind numbing chit-chat that is 'how is your wife?' 'no how is your wife' and so on, and grabs Shikamaru by the hand and leads the way into the school building.

Someone chuckles behind us, and although it sounds a bit like Tou-san, I would place my bets on Shikaku-san.

"So! Shikamaru! Or should I call you Shikamaru-san? Or kun? I never know. Tou-san never uses suffix... suffixes? suffice? Anyway, Tou-san never uses them, but the name 'Tou-san' uses one itself, and my Ka-san always uses them. Tou-san always says that active duty shinobi never use suffix...es? but I'm not sure if being an academy student counts as active duty. I wouldn't think so but maybe I should follow the same rules anyway to build good habits?"

"Sano, calm down." Hideo says, patting her on the shoulder and causing her to freeze and release the death grip she had on poor traumatised Shikamaru's shirt. It's not that I'm jealous that Hideo calls Asano by a nickname, it's just. Nicknames are stupid and I could use it if I wanted to - which I don't!

"Right," Asano says, stiffening slightly. She turns and bows to Shikamaru formally, "I apologise Shikamaru-san. I am very nervous to start attending the academy and this has caused me to act inappropriately. Please forgive me."

Shikamaru continues to look as though he has suddenly run into a Kumo ninja who thinks he has a valuable kekkei genkei. (Look, I don't really get the joke, but I heard Ka-san make it and Tou-san laughed and called her terrible to it must be a pretty good joke.)

"It's fine. Let's just get to the assembly," he says after a minute. However it doesn't escape my notice that he walks the rest of the way standing at least an arm's length away from Asano. Mostly by walking next to me.

I'm 11, and I realise that I'm walking into the academy with two eight year olds and a nine (almost ten!) year old, and I look supremely uncool. Then I remember that the only people to judge me here are all my peers who I don't respect at all and do not care one whit what they think of me. It's a reassuring thought.

The assembly is exactly as boring as it has been for the past three years, and Shikamaru, although not snoring, is rather obvious pretending to be asleep.

I'll admit, I am ready to be out of the academy. I will also admit that I am terrified at the idea of being an active duty shinobi. I don't want to. (Please. Please don't make me.)

Chapter 14: Shadow Archive - Shikamaru

Chapter Text

I knew from the time that Dad told me that I had to attend the academy that it would be a drag. The other children my age are all so excited to be shinobi, so excited to have superpowers. I wonder how many of them are aware of the cost. None of them probably - don't even know the cost really.

Our teacher's name is Nao-sensei. Which I remember for all of a minute and a half before I mark it as 'vaguely important' and put it aside until I need it. I'm not sure when I'll need it, but names are always good to know. Mom whispered that it was a good way to pretend to care and Dad agreed with her (by smiling because he was pretending he couldn't hear her).

Even with Choji sitting here I wonder who it was that Dad was making strange remarks about meeting. Presumably it's the Ino of the Ino-Shika-Cho, but I've never met them. I'm not even sure if the Ino of the group is a girl or a boy.

Maybe the blond boy at the front of the class? Maybe that girl with blonde hair already surrounded by other little girls? Maybe the girl with pink hair? It's hard to tell because usually a kid looks like their parents, but not always.

Like the family from this morning. They were weird. Their dad... Shoichi? was super weird. Maybe he was just stressed? I can't be sure really. Either way the kids all looked pretty different, only the oldest kid looked much like his dad, and even then, they didn't look that similar.

Maybe it's because clan kids look more like their parents? Like Choji looks like his dad (expect that he has a different hair colour) and I look like my Dad (minus the scarring) and I don't remember hearing about a Sakurai clan. I'll hold onto the idea and see how well it sticks, three points of information really isn't enough to draw a conclusion.

Speaking of the family from before, the girl, Asa? Sano? Something like that. She's sitting the row ahead of me. She seemed really nervous considering she has two brothers already attending, if anything I should be the one who's nervous since I know nothing about attending the academy.

Funnily enough, much like myself, she's not exactly paying attention. Admittedly the only thing that's happened so far was the blond boy was late. (he's probably not the Ino of the group, most clans would never let their kid be late - though each clan is different so who knows. Mom would never let me be late.) Sensei introduced himself and told us that we'll mostly be doing book learning for the next six months. (Not in those exact words of course.)

"Alright class, now we'll each take a turn to introduce yourselves. Say your full name, and one interesting fact about yourself."

I would love to take a nap right now, but I think it would be best if I waited a few days to pretend I'm a good student first. Sensei seems like a new teacher so he might not know that Naras always sleep through lessons.

"My name is Ino Yamanaka and an interesting fact about myself is that I can do a handstand for five minutes!" After an appropriate pause for oohing and aahing the class moves on. I guess I found my Ino.

I'm not entirely sure we are compatible at this point in time. I'll give it a shot of course, but at eight years old we are still going to change a lot before we are actually on a team together. So it's not the end of the world if we can't be friends yet.

I mostly zone out for most of it. Obviously I'm cataloguing all the names like I forgot to during the assembly, but I'm not particularly listening until it gets to the girl from before.

"My name is Asano Sakurai and I have three siblings." The kids from civilian families don't see what's so special, neither for the clan kids really. "Both of my parents reached the rank of chunin." She adds, and the clan kids take a moment to pause. Her parents aren't famous, or jonin, so she's not likely to end up on teams with any of them unless she gets top marks. Nonetheless, it's hard for female ninja to have children. Having three siblings is a pretty interesting fact to the clan kids at least.

It passes around to a few more kids before it's my turn.

"My name is Shikamaru Nara and I can remember everything I hear," I lie. It's not that I have anything against the kids in my class, but it doesn't set a good precedent as a shinobi to be overly truthful. And it's not far from the truth. Eventually will be able to remember everything I hear, once I master the Shadow Archive, officially the lamest clan technique of all time.

Chapter 15: Dissonance - Shikamaru

Chapter Text

The academy is boring. I knew it would be, but it has surpassed my wildest dreams and I know try to find interesting in anything I can. This meaning Ino Yamanaka and Asano Sakurai.

Ino looks like she models herself after her dad. I've met Inoichi before and he has darker blond and a different shade of green eyes. Despite this, their attitude and the shared ponytail suggest that maybe she models herself after her father? Maybe it's just that they find the same things appealing.

Asano looks like her dad. Actually if she had thinner eyes she could look a bit like a Nara. She doesn't act much at all like a Nara though. At first her disinterest seems a lot like my own, but her every action seems tinged in anxiety or confusion or distrust. It's hard to tell what motivates her, but the more I watch the more I know there is something wrong with her.

She feels disconnected from the rest of the class. Sometimes she comes in, clearly having not slept the night before, and continued on as if she was used to such a thing. I don't think she sleeps enough. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I take note anyway.

Her brothers are weird too, if in different ways. Her blond brother, Hi- something seems to have extreme mood swings and is the most active of the three. He seems to enjoy physical activity (like I said - weird).

The oldest brother. Well. He makes bets all the time which isn't that weird. What's weird is that usually he seems like a pretty smart person. Not a genius or anything, but definitely ahead of the curve, but when he gambles. I don't think I've seen him win a single time. Yet, despite the clear evidence of his bad luck, and his smarts, he continued to place bets on everything.

Of the three, I would probably say that the oldest brother was the most interesting, Tao or something like that. Unfortunately, he's three and a half years older so I don't see him very often. Asano on the other hand shares a class with me.

Around three months into attending the academy, it hits me. Asano is strange. But. She's disconnected. Almost broken. Like she's watching the academy through a window. Most of the time, she seems pretty normal. Others it feels as though she is pretending to be a real person.

I don't think I like her. (It feels uncomfortable to watch her. There's something wrong with her. Is she even human?) I decide to avoid her.

Choji never asks why I decide to change where we eat lunch and for that I am grateful.

Chapter 16: Regret - Sakura

Chapter Text

Sakura is… well not a huge fan of the academy so far. The lessons are really interesting, and attending means she can read more of the library books which is great! It's just - well - the other kids aren't very nice.

She's doesn't even know that some of their names are. She knows Ami (of course) but most of the others aren't even in her class. (She has noticed that her class is smaller than all the others.) They laugh at her hair and her forehead mostly, but also about her lack of friends and her tendency to cry. And it's not like she believes them - they're bullies in the most obvious sense so she knows they're probably lying.

But.

Not a single person in their class has tried to stop them. No one. Admittedly, it's only been a few months and some of them probably haven't even noticed. (Kiba and Naruto are always too loud and self centred to notice anyone else, for one.) Still, growing up she had heard about how awesome and amazing clans and their children were and, well so far it's been a bit of a disappointment. Mostly they seem bored, lazy, or obnoxious.

She's not sure she likes who she's becoming at the academy. One thing that Sakura likes about herself is that she's always very honest with herself, even if she's not honest with anyone else. The second part has become more common. She wants to scream and shout and punch and hurt Ami and her little gang. She doesn't though, because if she gets revenge it'll be more subtle than that.

The more she holds herself back though, the more that thought process starts to comment on every part of her life. She likes that she has excellent self restraint, that was how she got spotted for the academy actually. So when her mother tells her to eat her vegetables and go to bed she does, because she knows that her mother is looking out for her. More and more though the inner commentary matches what she wants to be doing. She never does though.

She wonders, briefly if she's going crazy and decides that she'll figure it out later. Right now she has homework to do.

Sakura only met with her friends from the civilian school once after she joined the academy. She wasn't sure why, but they felt different. More likely she was different. They kept talking about games and books and all Sakura was thinking about was the economic situation in rural Fire Country and Shinobi Rules #25: never show your tears.

They felt like children. Like they needed to be protected. Which was odd, because Sakura felt like she was in need of protection too.

So for now she was lonely, and while it wasn't great, she would only be in the academy for 4 years - max. She could handle 4 years, after that she'd have a genin team and they would have to be her friend. (Four years was a pretty long time at 8 years old, but she figured that at 12 it would feel a bit shorter, hopefully.)

That said, arriving at the library and seeing a girl from her class there was… a surprise. Despite her best attempts a small blossom of hope sprouted. The girl looked up, eyes widening in surprise.

"Hello," she smiled, it looked a bit fake, but not in the mean way. More just tired. "Sakura- right?"

"Yeah, I'm Sakura." Sakura said, rather embarrassed she didn't know who the girl was. She did know that the girl wasn't one of Ami's friends, but why they weren't friends wasn't clear. She had never seen the girl outside of class at all actually.

"I'm Asano," the girl said, sticking her hand out for a handshake. Sakura took it, feeling a bit mature. She'd never shaken the hand of someone who wasn't a patronising adult before. "Sorry, I want to finish this book before I go home, maybe I'll see you later though?"

"Oh yeah- later!" Sakura mumbled before trying to discretely flee. Her inner voice was swearing in a way that would make her mother rather upset. She really shouldn't have gotten her hope up.

The library building wasn't very big, and the sections about shinobi, especially those available to non-shinobi, was rather limited. So despite her best attempts to avoid Asano, Sakura ran into her at the library again a little under a week later. It felt a bit unfair since Sakura had purposefully avoided the library so Asano could finish her book.

Regardless, unless Asano was going to cause trouble (in which case she would get kicked out), Sakura was going to get used to reading in the same area as her.

"Oh! Welcome back! Are you okay? Were you sick? You ran out so quickly I didn't get the chance to ask you if you wanted to sit with me." Asano said with a gentle smile. Sakura thought that the girl was acting a bit patronising, but she had been acting like a baby by running away. (Her inner commentary added that it was mostly the girls fault and Sakura imagined crossing her arms in annoyance. She hasn't meant to run away, okay ?)

"I'm fine," Sakura said with a tight smile. At the awkward pause, she added, "what are you reading?"

"Chakra theory. Both of my brothers can use chakra but I find it really difficult."

"Are they the same age?" Sakura asked, a touch surprised, she couldn't remember seeing Asano with any boys. (She would never under the pain of death - or maybe when they were closer friends - but she had spent the last week watching Asano in class. She seemed kinda lonely too. It was oddly encouraging.

"Nah, they're both older, but Hideo has been controlling his chakra since he was seven." Asano said with a sigh and a stretch, "Hideo's a bit of a genius actually. His teachers keep on trying to get him to graduate early but my Tou-san won't let him."

"What about your other brother?" Sakura said, mildly curious despite herself. As an only child she'd never thought much about comparing herself to family members.

"Taro's really smart. But he doesn't like fighting. I'm not even sure he really wants to be a shinobi." Asano said, "I hope he becomes a medic instead. He could be good at that."

"Why a medic?" Sakura has been to the hospital for a checkup and such, but she's never really thought of it as a job what. You know, people did. It was like a merchant. Yes merchants were people, but did people really become merchants?

"Well…" Asano started, paused, and started again. "He is pretty good and memorising stuff and sticking information together. He has decent chakra control, though he'll need to improve it. Mostly cause I think he'd like it better than being an active duty or desk shinobi."

"Huh, well I want to be an active duty shinobi." Sakura said. Mostly because she wasn't sure how to add to the conversation, but also because how awesome would be to do stuff like the Hokage!

"Then do that! There's nothing wrong with being active duty. I just. I worry that he's unhappy," she admits with a small frown. Something Sakura can't recognise washes over her face, the other girl stiffens slightly then immediately relaxes. "Would you like to read with me, either by sharing the book or by grabbing one of your own?"

"Sure!" Sakura grabbed Theory of Dissolving Chakra by Leiko Matsuya , mostly because it was easy to reach and looked vaguely interesting (unlike Treasey on the Development of Beginner Chakra Signs as are Used in Modern Time by Maaya Uchiha used an old version of the word modern and was Sakura's first introduction to irony that she actually understood.)

This was the start of an eternal, and sometimes rather quiet friendship of Sakura Haruno and Asano Sakurai. Later we will get to the non-quiet part of it.

Chapter 17: Lies - Shoichi

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Shoichi was, for the most part, rather content with his life. He had four children, three of whom were in the academy and one who was five and seemed to be constantly adorable. (How she maintained this adorable facade while at the same time throwing a tantrum because the window was cold, he will never know.)

On top of that, while Yoko was finally adjusting emotionally to being 'fucking useless' (her own words - and utter lies) he would admit (only within his own head) that he was kind of taking advantage of it.

The academy wanted all three of their kids to move up at least a semester, and Shoichi would never, ever tell his wife. She would want them moved up, for Konoha most likely, and he would not let that happen. Asano was less than a full term in and although she was rather advanced in most subjects (her worst subject being that her writing was rather awful, though sometimes artfully so) she had finally found a friend. At this point he would rather die than tear them apart.

He hadn't actually met the friend yet, but a girl named Sakura had to come up quite often in her tales from the day. Taro, who was lonely since his only friend ("rival Tou-san! She's my rival!") Mito Uchiha had graduated was the most likely for him to allow to skip a grade. That said, Taro was, well he was arrogant. It wasn't always noticeable, but it were there, and if he was arrogant and he didn't get on with his peers, he would die. Shoichi couldn't force him to be friendly with his fellow students, but he could force Taro to spend time with them.

Hideo…. Something was strange. Years ago now, Taro and Hideo had hidden something from him and he had never gotten the chance to figure it out, between Kimiko and a month long mission patrolling a dangerous border. Now he was starting to wonder if it was more important that he had first thought. He had rather assumed it was that Hideo had figured out how to use conscious chakra, and he had.

It was starting to be evident that something else was going on. (How long had he ignored the way that Hideo's bed was slightly green and the floor had grown around it?)

Anyway , Kimiko was adorable. She was perhaps the most articulate of his children yet, and best of all, the fastest potty trained. She was, of course, unhappy with being at home while her siblings were at the academy, but she didn't actually seem to understand what the academy was.

Shoichi's thoughts were markedly focused on this while he jumped home from the mission desk and felt a vague sort of happiness over the view of Konoha at sunset.

He came in the house, through the window as he always did when there was a chance Kimiko was taking a nap. (She adored naps, much like Taro on that front.) He heard Asano whispering to Kimiko through a crack in the door, and unconsciously listened in on it.

(He unassumed Asano was talking to Kimiko, since they often seemed thick as thieves when they weren't fighting and it was in Kimiko's room, which remained on her own as she went to bed early and was prone to leaving an absolute mess behind her. Like, Shoichi had thought that Hideo was messy, and while he wasn't wrong, Kimiko was on a different level.)

"The difference," Asano whispered, "is that Tsunade is Tobirama's granddaughter, not Hashirama's. Which is strange because it means that Ka-san is the first born grandchild of the older male sibling, but Mito Uzumaki - Hashirama's wife - never had children," it sounded like she had been looking into their family history.

It rather hurt his chest to hear her explain to Kimiko, who had recently learned of her ancestors, why they had to be a secret. The rule that Yoko had himself had come up with was that at five they would tell the children (or child, as Shoichi had assumed at the time) about their parentage and at twelve, or whenever they graduated, they would get the full story.

He was not looking forward to such a time, coming in only a few months for Taro.

Notes:

A/N: This fic takes place in a slight AU (or UA for Universe Alterations) the root cause of which will be explained later, but in essence this shift is why Asano exists in this universe, but not in canon. For those of you who noticed, Tsunade, in canon, is the granddaughter of the First Hokage (Hashirama) while in this universe she's the granddaughter of the Second Hokage (Tobirama). For those of you unfamiliar with canon, Tobirama and Hashirama are brothers.

Chapter 18: Bullies - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sakura and Asano are not a perfect pair, and the world doesn't dissolve into a flurry of golden sparks because of their friendship. Which Sakura sometimes thinks is unfortunate. Asano had described how in romance books everything was perfect once the love interest and the main character got together properly. Sakura wished that would happen.

Since they've started spending time together, they started spending lunch times together and leaving the academy together. As a result, for one glorious week, Ami and her friends left her alone.

Then the week ends, and they're back again. Except, now they're doing it in the middle of the yard where Asano sits. From here, Sakura has her back to the tree with another kid sitting on the swing which hangs on the other side. The ground is still dusty but under the tree it's a bit bumpier and the yard is loud.

Actually, it's a bit hard to hear Ami when she first arrives.

"So I'm thinking about this book I read - it's about a boy who lives in a world where only some people have chakra-"

"Don't you need chakra to survive? It's like, your life force right?" Sakura interrupts. She has to, from time to time or Asano won't stop until they go back to class.

"Umm. I'm not sure actually. I guess if you get bad enough chakra exhaustion you can die so maybe?" Asano murmurs, looking thoughtful before sitting back up rather abruptly. "Anyway! So he lives with his Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin - none of whom can use chakra. Except when he's twelve he has chakra so he gets to attend the academy."

"That's pretty late to start learning," Sakura starts, feeling a touch sceptical. That's when they will graduate after all.

"Well yes… But in the book there aren't any shinobi because the Fire Country isn't at war in it."

"Oh… So why does he need to attend the academy?"

"You know when you were young and you accidentally used chakra."

"Yeah?"

"Well he did it a lot, and if he didn't go to the academy it would get worse."

Sakura nodded in a rather confused manner. That wasn't how chakra worked, but okay.

"I said ," someone says nearby, "look, forehead made a friend!" Sakura turns to face Ami, who is standing on her right. She reaches out to grab Asano's hand to the left behind her, in case they have to run.

"Anyway, Sakura," Asano says, either ignoring or not hearing Ami's words. It's hard to tell. "So this boy goes to the academy, except it's not really like other academies."

Ami says something, but the words are lost in the noise of the yard since she's standing a couple metres away. After a couple minutes of Sakura giving Ami nervous glances, and Asano mostly ignoring the whole thing, Ami sort of explodes.

She runs forward and grabs a wad of Sakura's hair and pulls on it. A couple of the other girls come join, although a few wait behind. Sakura is a bit preoccupied by the pain and terror. The tugging means she's forced to look at the ground and there are other girls all around her and it's loud and it hurts and-

There is a feeling of terror. Like Sakura is the mouse before the cat. She is nothing. Worthless. Dead already. She doesn't even notice the hands letting go.

A hand grabs hers, and she is tugged away.

Notes:

By the way, to any readers who haven't realised it. This fic takes place in an AU. In the last chapter Asano mentioned that Tsunade was Tobirama's granddaughter, while she was Hashirama's granddaughter in canon. This will be explained in a later chapter and is completely intentional.

Chapter 19: Ninja Walking - Shikamaru

Chapter Text

I was pretty sure the Sakurai family wasn't a clan - I even asked Dad, who seemed unpleasantly startled by the question. (Though I was probably reading him wrong, he could have also been recently awoken from a nightmare or fed some of Grandma's green tea rice pudding.)

So why did Asano know so much about the clans?

It was strange because the clans in general are rather secretive, yet she somehow knows more about some of them than I do. Like the fact that Itachi Uchiha is Sasuke's older brother. I had heard Sasuke talk about how amazing he was, but until Asano had mentioned it to her new friend Saka (or something like that) I hadn't even remembered his name. (Saku maybe?)

I also hadn't known that the Slug Sannin was Senju Tsunade, often called Tsunade-hime. I knew that both of them existed, and I knew that the Slug Sannin was best known for her great strength, especially considering she was also a medic. I knew that Senju Tsunade was a famous medic who had retired years ago after the war (which was however, was unclear). I hadn't known they were the same person, and Asano did.

I felt a bit competitive about it. Which was odd as I had never felt competitive about anything other than shogi before.

Regardless, I still didn't like Asano, at all . There was still something creepy about her, especially when we were paired together, like every action she took was deliberate. There was always a millisecond pause in her actions and reactions that no one else seemed to have.

(I had not yet had the chance to test her brothers though, so it might be genetic. Or maybe they were told horror stories about the Nara clan. Kiba - that was his name right? Seemed to think that a Nara's shadow ate people. While a Nara's shadow could eat people, it would never do so by accident . Kiba seemed unhappy when I suggested that eating too many people would make a shadow fat.)

Also, we were starting to learn Ninja Walking (which was something no one except for Hina - the Hyuuga - and Sasukua - the Uchiha - already knew how to do). I was definitely not watching any of the other students and certainly not Asano was she laughed, perhaps a touch manically? (Or was she tired? Maybe she had been poisoned?)

Ninja walking was a lot of work, and I'll admit I slept though at least half the lesson. Dad, however, indicated that it was important enough to work on, while thoroughly destroying me at shogi. It was a great night.

Chapter 20: Friends and Family - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sakura's parents were both chunin. Her mother was actually a diplomat, or something like that, and required a lot of time away. Father was busy, but never away, so it was a bit of a trade off. As a result the house was quiet, even when everyone was home.

Sakura had never mastered any of the instruments her mother played, and her father's ability to dance to any song rather excluded her. Which was too bad, Sakura didn't mind the quiet, but it sometimes got a bit creepy.

Asano's house was. Very different.

Sakura's house was a two story apartment on the edge of a residential district, a marriage gift from her grandfather. It was a beautiful place, with windows that could be closed and locked shut to activate the grand number of seals throughout the walls. The walls outside were painted off white and the roof was green and it wasn't that she didn't love it, but it often felt. Well, it felt empty.

Asano's house, distinctly did not. It was on top of a bakery. The stuff they sold was actually delicious, and considering it was midwinter and it cost a fortune to keep a house warm time of year, well it seemed a great benefit.

She had three siblings, not just the two she had mentioned when they first started talking, and her mom was always home. Asano's house was warm, and loud, and a little bit crowded. None of them played any instruments, or made poison like Sakura's parents did, but Asano's mom did cook. She hadn't actually seen Asano's dad yet, and was a bit to nervous to ask if he was… you know… alive?

Asano sneaks her into the house while Sakura is still mostly unresponsive. Her head is stuck in a loop of ' I'm going to die' and her inner voice isn't helping by echoing it back. When she comes back to awareness, she's in a room she doesn't recognise and someone is brushing her hair. It only takes a second to realise that it's Asano who's brushing her hair.

"What happened?" Sakura asks, hesitating, she's unsure she wants to know the answer.

"I'm sorry. I- I was really mad that they were doing that, but I didn't know how to respond. And. I -uh- just. Did ." Asano says. It takes Sakura a second to realise that… she thinks Asano might be lying? She's not sure, but. It sounds a bit like lying.

"Where are we?" Sakura looks around the room. It's a bit of a mess. A bedroom for three people.

"I'll tell you what, let's go downstairs and come in properly, instead of sneaking in. Then you can meet my family." Asano says, starting to sound excited. Asano puts the hair brush to the side and pulls Sakura up.

"Alright," it sounds interesting at least.

Asano's little sister, Kimiko, is adorable . She has soft golden hair and softly blushing cheeks. Most of all the way that Asano gave her a great big hug and when they saw each other made Sakura wish that she had a perfect little sister like Kimiko.

Asano's brothers were… Well Hideo was awesome. He was funny and smart and if Sakura liked blond boys she might have a crush on him. She doesn't like cheerful blond boys, so unfortunately Taro is more her type. Despite his being incredibly patronising and treating her like a complete idiot, he's really damn cute. He's eleven and his dark hair, striking gaze and quiet manner seems like the sort of person she would eventually like the date.

Asano figures this out almost disturbingly quickly. The moment Taro says hello and sees Asano she glances at Sakura. Then as he walking into his room and looks between us, quickly snapping her head back and forth. And then she knows. Just like that. It's almost rude, really.

Sakura decides that, really, she should never talk again. Mostly because Asano introduces Sakura to her mom, and Sakura's inner voice takes advantage of Sakura's consciousness being mostly vacant still and says,

"Oh, your mother's a cripple!" Which. Is perhaps literally the most embarrassing this can every remember dong. Wetting her pants when she first started civilian school was less embarrassing than this. Sakura's consciousness then returns, again out of shock. "Oh my Kami I am so sorry! It's that there's anything wrong with being a cripple - or not. I just- My brain just-" Sakura doesn't really have the words to describe that it wasn't her it was the voice in her head and no, she wasn't crazy. Instead uses a hand gesture for puke which she found in a text about basic shinobi signs. Word vomit. Beautiful imagery. Her mother would be proud.

"And this is?" Asano's mother says with a pointed raise of a single eyebrow.

"This is Sakura Haruno. She's a civilian trainee in my year group." Asano says, Sakura eyes her friend who is speaking more slowly and clearly than she ever has before. She's also standing up straighter. She looks almost like what Sakura imagines standing at attention looks like. She tries to discreetly straighten up, but mostly fails in the discrete department.

"I don't suppose you have started to receive class statistics yet?" Asano's mother asks, looking rather a lot like a queen in a throne or a hokage in her office from her wheelchair.

"Not yet, we'll start getting them at the end of this term." Asano says before adding, "I am unsure of where she'll place now, but I believe that by graduation she will be top of the class. Sakura is quite clever and even more motivated."

"Very well then. I am Yoko Sakurai, thank you for befriending my daughter." Asano's mother looks rather like she just sucked an egg and like she's pretending she hasn't. It mostly just looks awkward to Sakura, who gives a shallow bow.

"My name is Sakura Haruno, it is an honor to meet your acquaintance." Sakura says, trying her best to sound formal without sounding stiff, something she's not actually terrible at because of her own parents.

"Go on then, I have dinner to make," Asano's mother says, shooing them both from the room.

"Yeah, yeah Ka-san! We'll be upstairs!" Asano says, the slouch suddenly returned. Asano grabs her hand and drags her upstairs.

It's an open floor with three beds, all of which are covered in clothes and books and various other messes. At the end of the room is a wardrobe between two windows and next to each bed is a dresser, also covered in clothing.

Asano's older brothers are both sitting on their beds 'doing homework'. Well, actually, Hideo appears to actually be doing homework. Taro looks like he's… asleep? Sakura damns herself to thinking that his wispy dark hair looks fluffy and she really wants to run her hands through it.

"Come on, let's go to the roof." Asano says, pulling open one of the windows. Hideo makes a quiet sound of protest as warm air is replaced by it's cool winter counterpart.

Sakura follows Asano onto the slanted window covering, the wood has been sanded by feet and is almost slippery to the touch. She rather expects Asano to close the window and for them to sit there together. Instead Asano pulled open the other window from the outside and uses the shutters as a step to reach the actual, straw covered roof.

Sakura does her best to follow, and admittedly, doesn't fall. It's still terrifying and she's pretty sure she's pulled something. She can hear Hideo yelling to close the window but even if she doesn't want to make them hate her, she wants to fall off the roof less. She doesn't close the shutters.

The roof is actually mostly covered by a fenced off concrete flat space that Asano explains can be used by shinobi to jump from roof to roof. Asano sits with her back against the concrete, and Sakura follows her example. The straw beneath is cold, and possibly damp. Her inner voice is complaining but also rather excited to get to see something that is personal to her friend. Mostly her inner voice want her to hug Asano for warmth.

So she does.

Asano jumps slightly at the touch, before slowly returning it. Asano is really good at giving hugs. They sit like that for a little while before Sakura pulls back and really looks at the view from the roof. Looking straight cross the road just shows you another building, but if you turn to right you can see the academy's sign with the kanji for fire on it. If you look past the academy you can see the Hokage Monument.

"Hey Sakura?" The sun is starting to set and threads of golden light stream down onto the Monument, which has never looked so beautiful before.

"Yeah?" It made Sakura think of her civilian friends. In need of protection. Worth protecting . A soft feeling a warmth emanating from her chest. This was why she was willing to be a shinobi.

"Thank you for being my friend." Sakura smiled, still gazing at the Hokage Monument reached out a hand to hold on to Asano's.

Notes:

A/N: Thank you to libraryrocker on AO3 for mentioning the difficulty in telling apart the POVs, all chapters are now labelled with their POV in the title.

Also thank you to InARealPickle for the helpful constructive criticism on chapters 2 and 17! To those of you I have not spoken to, this fic takes place in a slight AU which will be explained around chapter 27.

Chapter 21: Rain - Shoichi

Chapter Text

It doesn't rain often in Konoha, but when it does, it pours.

Shoichi is at home, for once. He's be going on missions so often that when he picks Kimiko up, she looks surprised to see him. She's five and a half and if he wasn't a shinobi she would feel dead heavy, as it is, he could carry her around all night and barely notice. His other children are all hiding in their room upstairs where Yoko can't easily get to them.

Then the alarms start blaring.

Shoichi throws on his chunin vest and is out of the door in less than five seconds. (Kimiko placed safely into her mother's lap.

He arrives at the mission desk where chunin will get their commands (jonin see the Hokage himself). You can tell who knows what's happened by the looks of vague shock and intense horror.

Perhaps the worst part is not being able to tell what's wrong, if his family is in danger. There is no smoke, no visible invaders, no giant demon. Just a soft patter of rain, slowly increasing in intensity and an eerie silence.

The whisper reaches his ears.

"The Uchiha are dead."

Shoichi's stomach rolls and his thoughts immediately go to the Shadow Clan of the Uchiha. His own family is the most recent Shadow Clan for the both the Nara and the Senju. (A prettier way to say the replacement clan, if worst comes to worst.)

They are sent out to clean up the bodies and burn them.

" Are there any survivors ?" Shoichi wants to ask, but can't. There is no one here who knows the answer. And regardless, Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It's better if he doesn't know, then enemy forces cannot make him tell them. " Has anyone else been murdered tonight? " He wants (needs) to know. Only the head of the clan, and the clan heir know who the Shadow Clan members are.

There are bodies in the street, their blood running together in the rain into a red stream. It's cold, and wet, and all Shoichi can think as he carries the sometimes eye-less bodies to the pyre is disbelief.

He didn't like the Uchiha, as a whole. They were arrogant, they believed that any shinobi lower than jonin was a child. They stole jutsu that hard working shinobi created and copied it perfectly with barely any effort.

(They didn't do enough to stop Madara.) It was an old grievance, one that his own mother had lamented. It held true though. Surely such an important part of the village could not plan mutiny without someone knowing? Surely a member of a clan could not decide to change the course of history without anyone noticing in advance?

Surely?

He didn't like the Uchiha, but they were a force of Konoha. They had saved Yoko's life when they took her to the hospital when Kimiko was born.

Despite the fact that he was carrying Uchiha bodies to an already full funeral pyre, he still couldn't believe the Uchiha were dead.

Chapter 22: Ripples - Taro

Chapter Text

Mito is dead.

Chapter 23: Tears - Sakura

Chapter Text

Sakura's not sure what's going on. No one will tell her, but the adults all look grim and something is missing. She's trying to spot the absence because she can tell something isn't right, but she can't tell what it is.

It starts with the alarms to assemble going off one night. Everyone knows what the alarms mean, it's taught to every man, woman, and child from birth and this one means: civilians stay inside. At the academy they learned a week ago that it also calls for chunin and above to assemble and for genin to stay inside but be alert in case of further commands.

The next day they don't have school and are told to stay inside.

The day after that Asano's not in school along with Sasuke and a couple other kids in other classes. The streets feel oddly empty. She can't see the Uchiha in uniform like she usually can so they must be dealing with whatever's happened.

Neither of her parents are home so she can't ask them. Her inner self (who she is tentatively calling Inner) tells her to go see Asano, so she does. Asano's mother - Yoko - greets her at the door and silently gestures upstairs before rolling back to another room. She had looked a bit grey so Sakura starts moving up the stairs quickly.

Asano's face is streaky with tears and honestly she looks like a mess.

"Asano?" Sakura can't help the way her murmur sounds so surprised. Asano, even just from their short acquaintance, isn't a cry baby like she is.

"Go 'way." Asano says, putting her heads against her knees. The blankets are wrapped around her shoulder and judging by the waste basket, she's been crying for a while.

"What happened?"

" I SAID GO AWAY!"

Sakura freezes. Asano has never yelled at her before. Not in joy or in anger and this. This was far closer to a scream. But- what does one do when a friend says go away in a manner that is begging for help?

Sakura hesitates, then says,

"Will you be at school tomorrow?" When Asano says yes, she leaves, and wonders if she made the right choice.

Sakura wanders home, the absence of something important nags at her, but goes unlabeled. It rained the night before, poured, to be more accurate. The hair smells fresh and clean, although there is a hint of something Sakura can't quite identify. Metallic, almost. It smells like her mother's pots.

The next day Asano is at school. It's odd, her face and voice are clear and there is no evidence that she had been crying, in appearance or attitude. It makes Sakura wonder about how often Asano cries.

Chapter 24: Dangerous Thoughts - Shoichi

Chapter Text

In the wake of the Uchiha Massacre all civilians have been put on a curfew. Without the police force everyone is short staffed, currently chunin are covering for the police, but that's a full time job for a force of 1,000 officers, and the chunin office can spare 100.

Shoichi sees his wife three times in the week following the massacre, and each of his children once. He sleeps in the bunks provided since he is only there for a few stray hours.

The Uchiha District still smells like blood when the first civilians start saying they deserved it. They toss their hair, mention a time a Uchiha was an uptight ass, and use it as a reason it's okay they were all murdered in their homes - on their streets. They use it to explain why they are safe, because they aren't smug, nosy, and rude shinobi. It would baffle Shoichi, if he wasn't so aware of the ways that civilians could turn faster than the wind.

There is one small thing that gives him hope.

The shadow clan of the Uchiha lives on. Despite the fact that the murderer was Itachi Uchiha, who would know the names (at least) of the shadow clan, there were no murders that night outside of the Uchiha district.

There are a couple reasons they may not have come forward. The Uchiha might not have a shadow clan. Most clans do, but because of their doujutsu, the Uchiha might not. There might be a high risk of Itachi coming back to murder them if they step forward. They may have been instructed to stay hidden for a period of time, a month, year, or generation.

Or Itachi might not be the murderer.

The thought is sticky and spins around and around in his head. What if? What if? What if? Why is Itachi gone then? Who did kill the Uchiha? It seems incredibly unlikely, but- What if ?

It would make more sense if Itachi had killed the clan. He was described as precise. Calm. Self contained. A perfect shinobi. The last person to have been so widely described as the perfect shinobi in Konoha was Kakashi "Friend Killer" Hatake.

Everyday that he spends patrolling Konoha the thought reverberates through his head, until the morning the ANBU come to replace them. He returns to his normal life, and he stick the thought far back, locked up tight and away. It's a dangerous thought, and not very likely besides.

Chapter 25: Friends - Sakura

Chapter Text

Sakura learns about the Uchiha massacre from Asano, who explains it to her several days after. Asano never mentions crying, but her voice gets rough at points in the story. Asano explains that there are, as of yet, no declared survivors.

That Itachi Uchiha was Sasuke's older brother and the heir to his clan. She explains that Itachi was a prodigy, and that no one knows why he cracked, just that he did.

A week and a half later, Sasuke is back in lessons. (Sakura had thought he was dead . Asano had shrugged at the accusatory look, and later explained they might have been worried he would die, or that Itachi would come back to kill him.) He has always been proud, and sometimes mocking. Before he had been closer to Kiba in behaviour though, now he is silent and focused. His already pale skin is near of greenly translucent and there are deep bags under his eyes. His hands twitch and he seems to forget where he is.

Asano has to point out how closely Sakura watches Sasuke. The thoughts that had been creeping in about how soft his hair was. How smart he was. How cool he was. They all vanish under the realisation that he has just had his brother kill his entire extended family .

Before the massacre, Sasuke hadn't been unpopular , now though he is 'dark and brooding' as Asano puts it. The girls in their class flock to him, slowly building up.

By the end of the term, Sakura is one of maybe five girls who shows no interest in him.

That's not to say that he's not cute, and if he offered she wouldn't date him. But she's pretty sure he's got other priorities. Asano also explains that his wife will probably need to be very strong (which Sakura isn't - yet!) and will need to retire to have lots, and lots, and lots of babies. Which. Sakura's eight (almost nine) years old, and she doesn't know a ton about having kids, but she's not sure she wants to raise lots and lots and lots of them.

Sometimes Sakura wishes that Asano had never said anything, that Sakura had been allowed to slowly fall to whatever illness it is that plagues the other girls in the class. They have a group of friends and competitors, a hobby, and a goal, all in one. And, while Asano is a good friend, the winter term is lonely.

After the Uchiha massacre, starting around three weeks after, Asano had started coughing. Then she'd been gone for a week and half and Asano's mother wouldn't let Sakura in. She was back in for a week, then out with a fever for a week. Most of the month of December was spent like this.

Term break is in March, and while Sakura's class has never been large, five students dropped out at the end. Which as Asano put it, is not an insignificant margin.

The next term is a lot more fun, in some ways. The first term was all boring academic stuff, the active pieces are starting to get introduced. Half of the day is now spent playing team games like 'Protect the Kingdom' and 'Shinobi vs. Samurai'. Asano introduces a game called 'Dodgeball' which is basically just trying to hit people with balls. It becomes a very popular game that Asano hates playing.

She hates a lot of the games. She enjoys them, but before and after them she laments ever going to the academy.

Having been Asano's friend for almost six months, a few things have become clear.

The first: Asano is smart. Like really smart. Sakura has always known that she was clever, but Asano- Sometimes it feels like Asano already knew the information in advance, and just needed someone to remind her. Sakura is proud of her, but also rather jealous. As a female entry into the academy who has received limited training from her parents, she relies on her academic grades to hold her place.

Second: Asano sometimes tries to act less smart than she is. When the scoreboards went up, first week of the second term, Asano was only third. She rarely raises her hand in class. She falls asleep in lessons (occasionally).

Third: Asano is terrible at focusing and getting the work she needs to, done. At first Sakura had thought that she spent time at the library reading because she enjoys it, which she does. But she also does it to avoid homework. Asano regularly turns in homework where the ink is still wet. It never her best work either, sometimes random markings are crossed out and there are always smudges.

Asano's kanji is terrible and so is her grammar honestly.

Asano is also really good at finding hiding spots. Anytime either of them want to talk about something private, Asano takes the lead. Her hiding spots aren't traditional hiding spots, they aren't the 'out of sight, out of mind' sort of hiding spots, but rather, 'the places you don't look' hiding spots.

To date, they've hidden, in restaurants, on roofs, underground, in trees branches, in tree trunks, in the teachers room of the academy, and in Sakura's parent's bedroom. To name a few.

The most awkward time was when they arrived at an alcove and Naruto, a kid in their class, was already hiding there. Asano said they couldn't leave because it would be obviously suspicious, and Naruto said he couldn't leave because then the ANBU would find him. Sakura said that they couldn't talk about anything interesting while Naruto was there, and anyway, it wasn't very comfortable.

Despite Sakura's complaints, the next hours was spent in conversion drifting for awkward to enthusiastic and back again.

Afterwards the two of them laid together in a civilian park - one of Asano's favourite hiding spots, and talked. The park covered a playground, some green field, and a river in between two banks. One bank was covered in blankets and in civilians who enjoyed pretending that winter was over and summer was here. The other side, which could only be accessed by going through the river or jumping across from a high tree branch, was limited to them. The river wasn't loud but it did provide enough background noise that it wasn't easy to overhear anyone else's conversation.

"Hey Sakura," Asano said, looking up at the sky with her arms crossed behind her head.

"Yep?" She asked, fiddling with a piece of grass.

"I think you should make another friend." It was so casually said that it took Sakura a moment to discern what Asano had said.

"Are you like? Friendship breaking up with me?"

"No! But. I know that I don't listen to you enough." Asano pulls herself up and looks past Sakura down the green bank. "Either I want it to be quiet, or I want to share my own thoughts with you. I don't listen to you very often. That's not fair to you. So I was thinking you should make friends with someone who will listen to you." Asano's gaze refocused and she grabbed Sakura's hand. Her hands were a bit sweaty and uncomfortable, but Sakura didn't let go. "You have to stay my best friend though."

Asano's tone was desperate in a ridiculous way, as if Asano was the one who needed friends. Sakura had known, has always known, that she was the weak one in the relationship. Sakura was clever, but not as clever. Sakura was awkward, while Asano was just reserved. Sakura's biggest strength over Asano was that Sakura didn't get sick. Which wasn't a very helpful strength.

"Who would I become friends with?" Sakura asked with her best attempt at a wry smile, "I'm happy enough just being friends with you."

"I don't know! Ino maybe! She's pretty and smart and great at conversation!"

"Weren't you the one who explained to me that interrogation and torture were often different because interrogation was when the victim told their interrogators willingly, which was the Yamanaka speciality?"

"Well yes…"

"So… you want me to get interrogated?"

"No! But. Ino would be a good friend. I don't want you to miss out."

"Ino could be my friend, maybe. But you and her are pretty similar and you both prefer talking about yourselves - except when she listens it means she might record it to hold over my head in five years. You, on the other hand, just don't listen. Or have fallen asleep."

"Hey, I do listen to you occasionally."

"I know you do. You maybe aren't the best person to monologue to, but you are decent at conversation."

"Am I?"

"When did you get so unsure of yourself?"

"The Uchiha Massacre." Asano says immediately. The joking, conversational tone is absolutely destroyed. Sakura pauses to think about it.

"Are you strong enough or convincing enough to stop Itachi Uchiha?"

"Um. No? Probably not. But there are other wa-"

"Are you of a high enough rank that, assuming you noticed, you could notify someone that Itachi Uchiha was acting strangely."

"No..."

"Assuming you knew the massacre would happen in advance , do you have a way to stop it?"

"No," Asano whispers, looking terribly heartbroken. Sakura sighs, and lets it go. Instead wrapping Asano up in a hug.

That's another thing about Asano. She adores hugs. It's sweet because the academy is clear that touching someone you don't trust is amount to suicide via stupidity. Which isn't very nice but after how clear they've made it, well it's not wrong.

"But back to the matter at hand, I have no need or interest to find other friends." Sakura paused, and in a tart tone added, "Thank you very much."

Chapter 26: Student - Nao-sensei (outside POV)

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

At the end of each school year it is the job of the teacher to meet with the parents of their students, or in the case of orphans, either the head of of the orphanage or the hokage. After second year this shortens to each term. Nao yawned and stretched.

The academy classrooms were made to wide and open with large windows and high ceilings. The academy building was actually one of the few in the city that utilised seals. The Uzumaki had, understandably, been rather protective of their knowledge and had been reluctant to leave it outside of their control. Uzumaki Mito had been willing to put seals on the academy, the village walls, and the Hokage's office, from what Nao had heard.

The sound of wheels on wood reached his ears and Nao straightened. It was time to talk to Asano Sakurai's parents. Yoko Sakurai was the sort of quietly famous Kunoichi that the younger generation would not remember, Nao had taught her though, for half a year several decades ago. It had been during those six months that he had learned of the joys of teaching. The memory left him smiling fondly as he opened the door.

Shoichi Sakurai was not famous, in anyway. He was almost the epitome of normal. He had no specialisation, he used to no special weapons, he was proficient at ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu - with a small strength at genjutsu.

Nao considered it his job as a teacher to know both his students, and their parents, so he could be sure to cover any weak points they may have left. Which was why Asano confused him so much.

"Come in, have a seat," Nao said gesturing for Shoichi and his wheelchair bound wife to sit in front of his desk before taking a seat himself. "How competent do you think Asano is?" He asks. It's his usual question for parents. It tells him a lot about both them and their relationship with their children.

"I'm not sure," Shoichi professes, "I spend a lot of time on missions so I don't see her very often."

"I see," Nao hums noncommittally before turning to Yoko. As an ex-ANBU member Nao would expect her to do her best to keep her children safe. (Nao makes sure to keep track of his old students, and being the oldest teacher in the academy has some benefits when it comes to clearance.) It makes this situation all the more confusing.

"Asano is not particularly well suited to being a shinobi," Yoko says, in a very similarly dull tone to the one she would use in class. Some people change quite a lot while growing up, others do not. "She is slightly underweight and lacks any significant muscle mass. Her taijutsu is weak, despite having not yet started on kata."

"Why haven't you started her on kata?" Nao interrupts, plenty of parents choose to wait to train their children until they attend or graduate the academy. From what the other teachers say of her older children, she didn't do the same from them.

"Asano will need a different taijutsu style to the one that I use, which I have taught to Taro and Hideo. She's naturally fairly flexible but lacks strength, which would do her no benefit in the Strong Arm style."

"I see, and her ninjutsu, genjutsu, and technical understanding." Nao asks, making a note of Yoko's comments. The notes are written in code of course, but it's one that he's been using since the start of the term so it's almost as easy as writing it in plain text.

"Her chakra is… a bit odd. It's strongly in favour of Yin. Perhaps as a result of her birth." Yoko says, reminding Nao that Asano was born the day of the Kyuubi attack. Perhaps he'll teach Asano to use her chakra similarly to a Nara, since they also favour Yin chakra.

"Have you checked her for an elemental affinity?"

"No," Yoko pauses and the tension between her and her husband rises sharply. A disagreement clearly. " We decided to wait until they have graduated from the academy," she says in a tone that she begrudges Shoichi the decision.

"That's fine." Nao dismisses, most children don't learn their affinity until they graduate. Not even the Uchiha tested it until they graduated (although they did assume that the child had fire affinity until proven otherwise). Elemental chakra work required more chakra than most children had before the age of 13 or so. Although that Uzumaki boy might have enough, it might be worth thinking about at least.

"She could go into genjutsu breaking," Yoko admitted, an almostly questioning tone in her voice. "She has a very clear idea of what's reality perhaps, most the genjutsu I've cast she doesn't break, but she does recognise that they are there." Shoichi stiffens at the mention of Yoko casting genjutsu on her children, for good reason. Most parents try to avoid it, since it can have a destabilising effect on the brain. He can be pretty sure the effect it had on their daughter.

"Yoko, did you know that your daughter can use killing intent?" Nao mentioned offhand. Killing intent is… well it's rare. It's not even particularly useful at a low level, except against children. Even civilians would be unaffected by the level of killing intent Asano had managed to create months ago. There was a lot of interesting theory as to why children were so vulnerable to killing intent, but that wasn't particularly relevant at the moment.

"I," Yoko paused, hesitated, "did not."

" Neither did I ," Shoichi said, his jaw clenched, "shouldn't we have been informed about this?" He asked, as if daring Nao to explain it.

"Of course not. There was no proof that Asano used killing intent. Merely that some bullies were targeting her friend, the supervisors felt a small ripple of chakra, and both the bullies and Sakura Haruno fell to the ground, partially unresponsive. Asano then pulled her friend away. There was no proof what so ever." Nao wanted to be clear. Asano did do it. Everyone involved knew that Asano did it. A lack of proof just meant that she would get extra marks for being more discreet than her peers might've been about it.

"I didn't know know she could do it, but," Yoko paused again and Nao saw a flash of the steel that allowed her to work in ANBU for years without breaking, "I can't say I'm surprised she's able to utilise it. I didn't expect her to use it so early. However she's always been very… deliberate." Nao allowed himself to nod a centimetre. That was a good way to describe her. Deliberate.

"And her technical skills?"

"She is very weak at writing, and while she's rather slow she quite enjoys reading. Other than that she's above average." Yoko said, putting a gentle hand on her husband, who looked uncomfortable at the criticism of her reading.

"Above average is putting it mildly," Nao agreed, "if she was as good at taijutsu as she is at the technical component I would attempt to have her ranked as a prodigy. The speed at which she learns to skills is close to unprecedented-"

"About that," Shoichi interrupts. Nao sends his a short look of disapproval - manners matter. "Asano has always read a lot. Before she could read herself, she would insist on being read a wide variety of books. I wanted to ask you, how likely is it that she had already read about the concepts that she is learning so quickly."

"That's not… impossible," Nao pondered, it would make a lot of sense actually, "even if that was the case though. Her ability to understand and comprehend abstract concepts is several years above what I would expect at her age. Her logical reasoning skills are the same. If she played shogi, well, she could be a Nara!" Nao laughed, the girl had dark enough hair and similar enough features that she could pass as a branch member of the Nara clan. Her attitude in class was similar enough!

Yoko and Shoichi laughed, but not enough for such a joke. He'd forgotten that Shoichi was noted as being slightly Anti-Clan.

"Regardless, thank you for your insight Yoko." Nao continued, straightening up to wrap up the conversation. "Asano is progressing well in class. Her class ranking has gone down with the start of physical lessons, however I am optimistic to her ability to improve. I am aware that she possesses physical limitations that are stricter than her peers and as such it has been agreed that as long as she can reach the physical standard by the end of each year, a lower speed of improvement will not be marked against her."

Yoko smiled at that. Nao noted that although she seemed similar, she had changed at least a little.

"As her parents you should encourage her to practice strategy games and otherwise sharpen her logical reasoning skills. If you wanted, you could find her an official genjutsu teacher, but that isn't needed or recommended until she graduates. If you would like to learn more about genjutsu and children you can find it in the research section of the chunin library." Nao stood and opened the door for them.

"Thank you both for coming, I know that Shoichi usually attends on his own so thank you for coming when I asked Yoko. It's been good to see you again," he smiled and closed the door behind them.

Now to prepare to see the Takagi family.

Notes:

A/N: In chapter 14 I made a mistake and said that Iruka was their teacher from the start. I have retroactively changed this, I'm very sorry for the mistake!

Chapter 27: Despair and the Future - Taro

Chapter Text

I know, logically, that there is almost no chance that I will not graduate. I am near the top of my class. All that's left in fact is the ninjutsu exam. I can smell the tension in the room. I stare at the wooden floor as if it will reveal the world's secrets because something terrible as occurred to me.

I could fail.

I would never fail because I am unskilled, but I don't want to be a shinobi. Ka-san would be… disappointed of course, but she's never been to the meetings with my teachers, so she wouldn't know how unlikely it is. Tou-san would understand. Probably. Hideo might not even notice. Asano would, but as far as I can tell, she's never shared ay secrets.

There's a lump in my throat and I feel? Disconnected. I can see my fellow students (my 'peers' for four years, but I can't remember their names,) each nervous and obvious in their own way. They would know. My teacher (what is his name again?) would know.

Does it count as treason to purposefully fail?

Do I care if it's treason? (I do if I get caught.)

"Taro Sakurai," my teacher calls, opening the door. It's a rather interesting door. Both metaphorically and physically leading to my future.

"Please create a clone."

Slow as molasses I run through the hand signs, stumbling - purposefully - on two. When it's time the channel the chakra I make it a little thin and leave the image of myself a little vague around the legs.

As I expected, it's horrific. At first glance, it's almost passable, but the legs are shadowy and eerie. The more I look at it, the more horrific it looks. The shadows on my clone's face are all wrong, leaving my clone looking ill.

"Taro," my teacher says, far to calmly for someone about to fail me, "I know you can do it. Try again." I can feel the threat in the tone. They know .

I swallow my regret and run through the handsigns at normal speed, channelling my chakra perfectly.

My clone is perfect, although the ill look on its face remains.

"Congratulations on passing Taro, come grab a forehead protector. Remember to register before the team assignments next week."

"Yes sir." I nod and make my way into the harsh light of the yard. The cool dark of the building giving way to the heavy heat of a late summer day. Today is likely to be one of the last hot days of the year, yet I could not enjoy it.

I have signed my life away.

Asano had told me, a little over 4 months ago, that the all of the longest survivors of shinobi life aren't in active service. This isn't a surprise persay, but to hear her describe: the Hokage, the village elders and advisors, and the Legendary Sannin as the oldest famous shinobi. The only one (presumably) on active duty, is the Snake Sannin and a traitor, and even then he might've moved to a small fishing town - I don't know.

I walk, slowly, down the street. I only live a couple of blocks away from the academy but each step takes an eternity. My arms and legs and body tingles as I watch my body from just above my head. My limbs move automatically and all I can do is watch as I walk to my death.

All I can do is watch as I open the front door and my Kimiko runs out of her room and into my legs.

"Ka-san's a stupid head!" Kimiko whispers, presumably because Ka-san is making her clean her room again. She says it quietly though, because Kami forbid Ka-san hear her.

"Is that you Taro?" Ka-san calls from the kitchen. Taro wonders what she does there, she can't spend all day cooking, there are aren't enough meals or food to make. Yet whenever he sees her, that's where she is.

"Yep, I made it," I say. I can feel the tight smile, the mask sliding over my face . I am a shinobi. I am happy. I have reached my dream. The smile loosens and by the time Ka-san has rolled out of the kitchen I'm grinning and carrying Kimiko (huge and heavy though she is now) on my back.

"I'm so proud of you Taro," Ka-san says, eyes shining and a scarred hand reaching up to rub my cheek. I am a shinobi. I am happy. I have achieved my dream . I don't know what to say to that.

"Who do you think I'll be paired with, for my teammate?"

Ka-san fussed slightly over Kimiko's stained dress silently while I stared into the distance. (I am going to die.)

"Well, it depends, I expect. You'll either be placed on a long term or short term team, depending on whether they expect you to stay with your team once you become a chunin. Sometimes T&I and other departments will choose to apprentice new graduates." Ka-san looked up at me and smiled softly. (The tightness in my chest softens slightly, the aching is a little weaker.) "I suppose you'll get your grades when you register, so I'll expect we'll know better then."

"Oh right, that sounds. More complicated than I expected." I say, my mouth working mostly without thinking about it. My hand twitches on Kimiko's shoulder but I am otherwise still. (I am going to die .)

"Regardless of where you end up, I'm proud of you Taro." Ka-san says, and to my ears it sounds like a death sentence. Ka-san is so proud, so dedicated, so loyal to Konoha that her ideal death has always been in its defence. But Ka-san will never die on any battlefield or mission. I will. And Ka-san loves me for it.

"I'm going to go up to my room." I release Kimiko's shoulder and walk (far too steady) to the stairs. The floor is silent, and slightly yielding below me.

"Alright, your tou-san and I will need to talk to you tonight, so don't fall asleep."

"Hai, hai," I nod and make my way out of sight. The students who weren't attempting (and succeeding, in my case) to graduate today got to start their Autumn break a day sooner. Perhaps it says something about the shinobi system that the children graduating only get a week long break while teams are sorted. After that I will never have another two week break twice a year.

I am now, technically, an adult (of sorts), though most the rights that come with that only come when I reach chunin level. I could move out, though a genin salary isn't particularly large. I work. I will have to pay taxes. ( Great. ) I am considered, by Konoha, an adult, with an adult schedule. No more spring or autumn breaks for me. (Great.)

Civilian kids get to attend school (and follow its break schedule) until they're 16 or 18 (something like that). They don't have to pay taxes at 12 years either. God. Don't you love being a shinobi.

I promptly fall asleep, because no number of warnings on my Ka-san's behalf will be enough for me to stop trying to escape this absolutely beautiful life that I have found myself in.

When I wake up, it's to Tou-san, sitting over me. The light from the window is gone, it's night time. I stumble downstairs and find only Ka-san waiting for me. Asano, Hideo, and Kimiko are all elsewhere. Asano and Hideo are presumably out doing something, but Kimiko rarely leaves the house, since she spends all her time with Ka-san, and Ka-san rarely leaves the house.

"What's going on?" I mumble, pulling my blanket tighter around my shoulder and stumble into a wooden chair in front of the kitchen table.

"I told you earlier, Taro, not to fall asleep," Ka-san sighs, running a hand through her hair and giving Tou-san a significant look. He too takes a seat. "Now that you're a genin, it's time we tell you the full truth of our family's history."

"Oh. That," I nod, almost relieved at how much I don't care . Why would it matter to me that Ka-san was (maybe) distantly related to the first Hokage or something like that. I haven't thought much about it in years, not since Ka-san told me about it when I was five. Honestly I can't even remember much about what she said.

"Taro, you could be considered Hashirama's heir. As his eldest great-grandson, born to his eldest son's eldest daughter. Tsunade Senju will accept the title, since she was born to Tobirama and his wife, and adopted by Mito Uzumaki."

"What? Ka-san, you aren't making any sense." I say, raising an eyebrow. What? So the famous, all perfect, amazing Hashirama Senju had a illegitimate kid? He cheated on his wife? Yeah right.

"Mito Uzumaki was the first container of the demon fox, the Kyuubi, right?" Ka-san said, speaking much the same way I did when Hideo was being an idiot.

"Yeah? So?"

"Mito made the first seal of it's kind, from nothing, on the stop. It was effective, but it was in no way perfect. Having children would weaken the seal too much, and would risk releasing the Kyuubi. At that point in the village's history, if the Kyuubi attack then the village would have been destroyed and Konoha would be nothing more than an idea."

"Oh, okay. So she couldn't have kids." That makes sense.

"Hashirama wanted kids though, and Tobirama too a very long time to get married. So long, in fact, that Hashirama and Mito agreed that Hashirama would bare, and raise two children. They would be born of another mother, and unless no other heirs could be found, they wouldn't inherit the Senju clan."

"This is the important bit," Tou-san added, "the condition for the acceptance of the illegitimate children was that there were no other Senju who could take up the line, or at least, not one that was pure enough. At this point in time there was upward of 200 Senju, although many of whom were already marrying into other families and losing their name."

"So when Tobirama finally got married, and eventually had children, and those children had children, it seemed that the illegitimate line would never inherit. Since Hashirama's time though," Ka-san paused, her voice hitching slightly as her hands grip the arms of her wheelchair. "The number Senju alive has gone from upward of 200 hundred to," she pauses again, "one."

I had never thought about it much. Tsunade-hime was the Senju princess, everyone knew that. I had never thought about how she was the only Senju.

"The Senju were often specifically targeted why enemies because of the Senju legacy," Tou-san said, laying a gentle hand on Ka-san's back. "Many Senju have married into other families and given up their names for safety, but because of this, there aren't many left. Which is where we come in.

"After Hashirama had children, it was kept mostly quiet, but over the years the clans all learned of it, one way or another. What he had done became known as a Shadow Clan. The other clans used to as a back up. Before Konoha had formalised most clans lived in small, but very safe villages, made up entirely of the clan. Clan members would often be travelling or away for one reason or another. When the clans came to Konoha it became obvious with the destruction of the Taka Clan-"

"The Taka Clan?" I echoed, mostly in shock at the information. There were so many puzzle pieces that this affected.

"The Taka Clan was destroyed overnight by Madara Uchiha with his defection. The Taka Clan had taken pride in the the fact that they had killed hundreds of Uchiha despite not being at war with them. This was before Konoha of course, but with it's founding, the Taka Clan all moved into a Clan Compound. The night of Madara's defection he snuck into the clan compound and massacred them." Tou-san said, his tone and face grave. Ka-san had straightened herself up and with a few deep breaths looks as impenetrable as usual.

"Like what happened with the Uchiha?"

" Exactly . It was exactly like what happened to the Uchiha. You might start to hear about it now that you're a genin, but some say that Itachi was Madara re-born. Or else had been inspired by Madara's act." Tou-san finished, Ka-san placing a hand on his leg, nodding slightly.

"As an effect from the massacre and Hashirama's actions, many clans decided to have illegitimately, naming them Shadow Clans. The existence of these clans are secret, and the identities of the members of each Shadow Clan, and which Clan they care connection to is a secret only known by the head of the clan, their partner, and the heir." Ka-san said, leaning over the table slightly.

"There are a number of rules or guidelines that go along with Shadow Clans, though most are irrelevant to you right now.

"The Senju Clan however, is important right now. With Tsunade's death, our family will come forward to become the new Senju Clan. Tsunade has never formally acknowledged this, but unless she states otherwise, you will become the next head of the Senju Clan."

Chapter 28: Pots of Tea - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

By the start of their third term at the academy, Sakura and Asano have successfully become Sakura-And-Asano, which is perhaps a dubious achievement. Sakura's happy with it though. She's not completely sure she deserves it, since she's pretty sure Asano continues to keep some pretty big secrets from her.

At the start of the year, Asano drags Sakura to the front the crowd to read the score board. Sakura is number three out of the girls, and Asano has dropped to tenth, out of 15 girls. Mostly because Asano is… well she's slow. Not mentally! But running… She's slow.

"I guess I'll need to get a bit better," Asano says with a smile before pulling Sakura back out of the crowd.

"I don't get it," Sakura says as they walk into their new classroom, the room number having been on the top of the chart. "You're definitely top of the class in technical knowledge, by is your score so low?"

"I'm not sure," Asano hums, Sakura waits, because even if she claims not to know, Asano has an idea at least. "It's probably that they're weighted differently. So the first year it was all about technical knowledge and how hard you tried - or something like that. Then last year was mostly about pre-existing, or the speed of improvement, when it comes to physical prowess."

Sakura pulls Asano into a row halfway between the teacher and the back of the room. At the end of last year Nao-sensei had said he was retiring, but he didn't mention who would be their new teacher. Asano, if given the chance, will falter for several minutes before choosing a seat three row from the front. Which really is far too close.

Sakura sit, and when Asano doesn't she looks up to find Asano staring at her intently.

"What?"

"Can I sit next to the window?" Asano asks, in a surprised tone, as if she assumed that Sakura knew that Asano would want to. Sakura stands, and they do the awkward shuffle so Asano can sit next to the high windows that show a stretch of Konoha. Thinking back, Inner points out that it should be rather obvious, Asano always chose the seat by the window. Sakura herself thinks that the fact that Asano thinks it's obvious should probably tells Sakura something about how Asano thinks. Asano notices patterns maybe?

After a few minutes, other students start to trickle in. Sakura's never spoken to most of them. Shikamaru and Choji, two clan kids who always sit at the back, come in first. Shikamaru is a bit weird honestly, but Choji sends a friendly wave that Sakura returns. They could speak, it's quiet in here and they aren't far apart. The quiet of the room is calming though, and Sakura doesn't want to break it.

A few minutes later Kiba, who has an adorable puppy that Sakura sometimes thinks he doesn't deserve, and Ino, the girl Asano thought she should befriend, enter together. Kiba and Ino are fighting rather loudly, apparently Sasuke is top of the class?

It seems kinda obvious that he would, to Sakura at least. He's from a Clan (even if they are dead now). He doesn't have any friends (or family) to waste time with. His brother killed his clan (if Sakura were him, she would train really hard). Maybe he wants to be able to protect himself if his brother comes back?

The two of them fit near the front of the class, but Ino makes sure that she's closer to the aisle so she can sit next to Sasuke when he arrives. Sakura knows this because Ino announces it loudly and then adds,

"So you bitches don't be getting any ideas!" Which Sakura thinks might be a joke from the way Kiba laughed? But it also definitely wasn't one by the warning glare Ino shot her.

Hinata and Shino and the civilian kids, Karu, Etsuo, and Atsuhiko enter. All five of them are quiet, not so much walking together , as walking in the same direction simultaneously, upon entering the classroom they scatter and sit on different benches.

Hinata sits near the front, Shino sits near the back. Karu sits the row diagonally behind Asano and herself. Etsuo and Atsuhiko both sit on the same row as far apart from each other as possible.

By now there are enough kids that Sakura feels content in the knowledge that they are definitely in the right classroom. She could talk to Asano, but a glance shows that she's content staring out the window with a pensive look on her face, and honestly Asano is pretty terrible at conversation when she's like this…. Asano is always terrible at conversation admittedly.

Asano was silly for thinking she wasn't a good friend, she is, Asano is very dedicated and all that. Just. Either she doesn't want to talk at all, or she has something to share and she doesn't really want to listen. Every couple of days she'll be happy to have an actual conversation, and Sakura's okay with that . She just doesn't want to fool herself into thinking that Asano is good at conversation.

"Hello class, my name is Iruka Umino, you can call me Iruka-sensei. I am a chunin and your new teacher. I know most of you are familiar with each other, but let's go through the class and introduce yourself. Just your name and your goal. Let's start with you," Iruka-sensei says, pointing to Hinata, who turns pale and stands up.

"My name is Hinata Hyuuga, my goal is to honor my family and be a good clan head," the ending sounds like a question.

"My name is Ami, my goal is to be an awesome ninja!" Ami is an orphan, Sakura realises, she'd thought about it a while ago, but that confirms it. In Konoha only orphans don't have last names. She also uses the civilian term 'ninja' despite starting her second year at the shinobi academy . Sakura's inner self pities her, because it feel a bit cruel, while also making her feel better about herself. Sakura herself just dislikes her.

"I'M HERE! NARUTO UZUMAKI HAS ARRIVED!" Sakura sighs quietly to herself, while Asano lets out a violent twitch.

"Have a seat Naruto-kun," Iruka-sensei says after taking a deep calming breath. Sakura's inner self gives him a gold star not punching Naruto in the head for being such an idiot!

The introductions go around for a while. Sakura is surprised by how many people say things like "I want to own a bakery" or whatnot. They're in a shinobi academy ! Why are they here if they don't want to be shinobi?!

"My name is Sakura Haruno, and I want to be strong." Sakura says, she's not entirely sure it's the truth. It is, kind of. She wants to be strong enough to help Asano prevent things like the Uchiha Massacre. She want to be able to decide that what someone is doing is wrong, and then be able to stop them. She wants to be strong enough that her parents are proud of her. She wants to be strong enough that she stops feeling bad about her huge forehead and silly hair.

That seems like too much information to share though.

"My name is Asano Sakurai and I want to-" Asano freezes, quietly she finishes, "I'd rather not share." When Sakura reach out to touch her hand, is shaking.

Sakura misses most of the rest of them, but no one could avoid hearing,

"MY NAME IS NARUTO UZUMAKI AND I'M GOING TO BE HOKAGE!"

She feels a bit disappointed later that she missed them, but mostly she just wants to know why Asano suddenly looks terrified.

Unfortunately, it's the first day of school and they have a new teacher, so Iruka-sensei will probably be hyper attentive to any "trouble making". So instead of leaning over and asking Asano what's wrong, Sakura keeps her mouth shut and faces her teacher.

Iruka-sensei explains that this year they will start learning sparring and hand signs, and girls will start kunoichi class, which everyone is welcome to be a part of. Next term they will begin to learn to consciously use chakra. This earns a derisive snort from Sasuke, which Sakura thinks it pretty unattractive, especially considering how very attractive he is normally. Mostly it's because Sakura knows that all the clan kids will know how to do it already, but shinobi born kids sometimes, and civilian kids usually don't.

Sakura, for one, doesn't know how to consciously use chakra because a couple years ago when she asked if she could, her dad said she didn't have enough chakra. He said that if she tried to do it now, she could get hurt or die. At the time that had seemed like a terrifying concept, right now Sakura thinks she'd be willing to risk it. She wanted to be a shinobi so that she could do cool jutsu and stuff like that, so far all they've done is sit in a classroom and run around on a field.

Admittedly she's really enjoying learning things at the academy, it's significantly more interesting than civilian schooling had been.

That afternoon, Sakura pulls Asano out of the school and towards the Hokage Monument. Near its base there's a tiny little tea shop that Sakura adores. It has the frozen mochi balls and since it's already October, it'll be too cold for them soon.

The matron of the store (she calls herself the matron, Sakura will admit to not knowing what that really means or entails) is a stout middle aged woman who greets them cheerfully then nudges them inside to warm up.

The tea shop (technically called Cherry Tea, but Sakura never calls it that because it's kind of ridiculous for Sakura and Asano Sakurai to drink at Cherry Tea) is cozy inside.

The air is warm, and slightly humid, similar to the weather in the summer months. As they it the smell of flowers and tea waft in. Sakura (or at least Inner) will punch anyone who says tea doesn't have a smell. It so totally does ! Asano looks out the window towards the village says,

"Konoha's pretty big… How come it qualities as a village instead of a city like the capital?"

"The capital where the Daimyo lives?"

"Yeah, the capital where the Daimyo lives, where else would I be talking about." Asano says, looking at her aggrieved.

"I said it like that because the capital is a city because the Daimyo lives there ."

"Oh," Asano smiles, and sips from the water placed before them. The matron knows what they like, so she'll bring it when it's ready without making them order it again.

"So why were you acting all weird today about your goal?"

"I've always had a pretty clear goal. But my goal is no longer to survive to the age of 10. I'll do that in a little more than a year."

"You're almost nine now?"

"Yeah? So are you?" Asano raises an eyebrow in confusion.

"But you didn't tell me it was your birthday!" Sakura exclaims (quietly). Last year they had met after Asano's birthday.

"Oh, I don't really celebrate my birthday or anything." Asano shrugged, sipping her water awkwardly.

"Why not?!"

"It's on October 10th."

"Oh." October 10th is a day of mourning. At night fireworks will go off to tell the story of the Yondaime killing the Demon Fox, but during the day everything is quiet. The graveyards are always be packed, incense sell out in stores. People (civilians) start crying on the streets. October 10th is not a great birthday.

It gets so bad sometimes, that people who are too cheerful get attacked by grieving civilians. In years past the Uchiha would stop any fights. ("That's not exactly an option now is it?" Inner says, a morose grin on her face.)

"Yeah, I don't really care much about my birthday anyway."

"Well next week I'll bring you a present anyway." Today is October 8th. There is a holiday on the 10th. Then it'll be the weekend. Asano usually sleeps through those, from what Sakura understand.

"If you want to, it's never been very important to me." Asano shrugs as the matron delivers their pots of tea with a smile, and small ruffle of Sakura's hair ( since she's the one who's closer today).

Sakura sips her tea, content in her thoughts. It was something she had rarely felt before she had met Asano. Her thoughts has always been rushed, half formed, and often not very kind. Now, they are softer. She's not perfect at it, but Asano always preaches mindfulness and mediation, and Sakura has done her best to follow.

"Do you know why I joined the academy in the first place, Sakura?" Asano asks in the deceptively light tone she always uses when sharing important, and often devastating information. Mostly for drama, Sakura imagines, Asano is a bit of a drama queen sometimes.

"No," Sakura obliges, "I don't. Why did you join the academy?"

"Because when I was younger, six to be exact, I went to the doctor with my parents, and I got an exam. After the exam was done, and my parents had left the room, for one reason or another, my doctor - a Hyuuga - told me if I didn't become a shinobi, I would die. He said that if I didn't join the academy, and improve my physical level of skill as well as increase my chakra levels, I would die. I would start to fade by the time I was ten, and be dead by 15. He said that it would be mostly painless, but it would be slow. And that I would die young without a doubt."

Asano takes another sip of her tea, while Sakura looks at her in blank horror, echoed by Inner.

"He said," Asano continued, "that if I became a shinobi, there was still a 50% chance I would die. But, that I would almost definitely live longer. He said that if I became a shinobi I would die painfully, whether it was on the field or in my bed, it would hurt. He summarised it by saying 'if you want to live past 15, become a shinobi and suffer through the pain'."

Asano paused again, and glanced out the window.

"I think he meant to be poetic with the last part, but it's stuck with me. He told a six year old civilian girl that she could be shinobi or die, and purposefully didn't include my parents in the conversation." Asano sighed deeply,

"I've spoken to him a few times since, I see him every six months, and he said that he wouldn't tell my parents because it is my choice. That he wouldn't fault me for choosing to die young, to die easy. He also said that my chances of survival go up to almost 75% if I can have jonin levels of chakra. Which is a possibility, considering how much chakra my Ka-san has."

Asano has slowed down, is speaking more clearly, as if lovingly shaping each word as it comes out. Sakura doesn't know quite what to say.

"I'm going to be a shinobi, I just need a dream beyond surviving, or graduating." Asano pours herself some more tea, "I think," Asano continues, voice calmer than before, "the problem is that I have a lot of things I want to do. I'm terrible at prioritising them. I need to decide what my overall goal is, and then act accordingly." Asano leans slightly, so their shoulders brush and Sakura smiles to herself.

"That sounds like a good idea." Sakura agrees, "I said my goal is to be strong." Asano looks away from her tea, towards Sakura as she continues talking. "I want to be strong, but I want to be strong so that I can do things. Maybe your goal needs to be like that. Less specific, you know?"

The matron brings out the mochi balls and Asano grabs the chopsticks. It's so silly, you're supposed to eat mochi by hand! Asano insists that it's better to savour it, and have clean hands. Sakura thinks she just fussy.

"I like that," Asano nods, poking at an ambiguously yellow coloured ball. The matron makes her own mochi and asks that they guess what flavours they were after eating them. In exchange they get the mochi for half off.

When the mochi is gone, and the bill has been paid, and Asano and Sakura are standing to leave, Asano speaks.

"My dream is to make the world a better place. I want to make a difference"

Notes:

A long (comparatively) chapter!

Chapter 29: Special - Shoichi

Chapter Text

Shoichi liked to think he was a pretty average guy. He worked very hard to reach such a state, after all. So it's never a good sign when his team head comes to find him. Usually it's because it's his turn to play Runner during training, but he can already tell that it's something important.

Shoichi's team captain is Seo-taichou, she's much more formal than most shinobi, and he can't actually remember her first name. Which. Is not great.

"Sakurai! You need to go to the Academy."

"Hai Taichou, do you know why?"

"No. Just that it's urgent. Get going." Sao-taichou jumps away, knowing that he'll go. Which he does. Obviously. As anyone who survives more than a single year as a shinobi knows, there's a sixth sense that you start to build. When something is going to go wrong, you're rarely surprising. That feeling, like a suiton jutsu building up behind you, grows in the back of Shoichi's mind as he makes his way to the academy.

In the front yard there is a giant, and obvious fake, tree. It's made of real wood, but it looks more like a cartoon tree, than one found in nature. A sinking feeling makes its way through his chest. His oldest is out of the academy, and his youngest isn't yet in it. So either Asano grew a tree, or Hideo did. Personally he's voting for Asano, because she was the one with the crazy, never re-creatable birth, because that would really make things much easier.

That said, his life has never been easy. So when he enters the front door, and is led to the head teacher's room, and Hideo is sitting there. He knows what's happened, in essence at least.

"Follow me, we are going to the Hokage's office." The head teacher, Rei Yamanaka, says from behind her desk. Shoichi gives his son a significant look, full of, ' what did you do?!' because it's one thing to many sort of have a dead bloodline, and another thing entirely to draw the Hokage's attention .

Shoichi has been in the Hokage's office before, for his rise to chunin for example. Unlike jonin though, chunin don't regularly meet him. Sometimes he will hear a jonin joke about the Hokage, full of respect, but still a joke. Shoichi never has, and never will feel that way about the Third.

He is called God of Shinobi and Grandfather, his children have each called him ojii-san at one point or another. For himself, personally, he can never forget the fact that the Hokage has lived through multiple wars, and taught Orochimaru himself. Shoichi doesn't doubt that the Third is great, he does wonder why people think he is good .

"You many enter," the secretary at the front desk says, with a tired smile. She stands and opens the door so can get in. After bowing and waiting for a minute, the Hokage looks up from his paperwork.

"Rei-chan, what brings you here today? Ah, a student!" The Hokage smiles and Shoichi is reminded that, like all shinobi, he must have been taught how to put others at ease, "and a parent too! Oh my!"

"Hokage-sama," Hideo's teacher bows again, "my student, Hideo Sakurai, grew a tree at the academy." The Hokage's cheerful shuffling of paperwork pauses, ever so slightly, and he puts the papers he was moving down.

"Is that so?" The Hokage asks, when she nods he turns to Hideo, "Can you grow trees?"

"Yep!"

"I see. Can you show me?"

"Um? Do you want a tree in your floor?"

"Fair point, fair point, let's go to somewhere foreign diplomats won't see," the Hokage gives a gentle smile and Hideo giggles.

The Hokage leads them into a large, bright room that Shoichi has never seen before. It is too big for a the space available, which is explained by the seals placed along a seam bisecting the room.

"Could you grow a tree for me here?"

"Yeah? I depends, do you want a tree that'll survive, or one that is just. There. For now. The one at the academy will wither and die pretty soon."

"I see, could you grow one that will survive?"

"I think so? Those ones are harder." Hideo knelt to the floor and placed his hands firmly on the dirt. Or a minute or so, nothing happened, despite the light sweat breaking out on his face. Then the ground shook a little, and a small crack appeared. Hideo stopped and laid down on the ground, shaking slightly.

"Man," he gasped, "I've never grown multiple trees in a day. Gimme a minute." After several heaving breaths he sat back up and placed his hands against the ground once more. This time, quite quickly, a small sprout appeared.

The sprout turned into a sapling and the sapling turned into a tree, and the tree grew up until it brushed the rather high ceiling of the room.

Shoichi turned from the tree to his son, now pale white and shivering despite the layer of sweat.

"He's got chakra exhaustion." Shoichi pointed out, he wouldn't do anything without the Hokage's permission. Most of his emotions were dulled by shock anyway, so he couldn't quite grasp the same urgency he normally would.

"Ah, a medic is coming to do an infusion." The Hokage said, having not even twitched as he prowled around the tree. "Did you know that your son could do such a thing, Sakurai-san?"

"No!" Shoichi gasped, for some reason surprised by the question. It was one thing for Hideo, a 10 year old boy, to hide such a thing, and quite another for an adult chunin, father of four, to do so.

"I didn't imagine you did, but it felt prudent to ask. And Yoko-san, does she know?" The Hokage asked, fingers gently tracing along the bark of the tree.

"She's never mentioned such things to me, but I can't imagine she does," Shoichi said, uncertain. She might not have told him, but she would have told the Hokage.

"Shall I call for her?" The Hokage asked, glancing up at him.

"You could," Shoichi said, adding, "she won't be able to make it up the stairs on her own." So many people forgot about her wheelchair, stuck in memories of Yoko as a young unmarried kunoichi.

"That can be dealt with. This however, is a very serious situation. You understand that your son has been learning the mokuton for a while now, months at least, but I suspect years." The Hokage looked past Shoichi and nodded before a medic rushed to Hideo's side.

Oh . Shoichi paused, realising he had left his 10 year old son lying on the ground in chakra exhaustion.

"Hokage-sama, may I take him to the hospital?" The medic inquired, when the Hokage nodded both Hideo and the medic disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Let us return to my office. Rei, you are dismissed," the Third made his way back out of the room. Shoichi followed, only partially out of terror (mostly because his mind had completely evacuated his body).

A few minutes later Yoko rolled into the office, making Shoichi pause. It should have taken her longer to get here. The streets of Konoha weren't made for wheelchair users, full of cracks and constantly uneven as they were. The Yoko he remembers from years ago did impossible, or at least implausible things regularly, so he shrugged it off.

"Yoko Sakurai, were you aware that your youngest son, Hideo Sakurai, possessed the wood release jutsu known as mokuton?" The Hokage asked, leaning forward slightly in a way that made Shoichi's breathing speed up.

"I was not." Yoko said, looking around the room and nodding slightly before she slid into place beside Shoichi. Shoichi turned to give her a smile when she added,

"But I married Shoichi because Nara blood increases the strength of other bloodlines."

Shoichi didn't freeze. He was a shinobi. Shinobi didn't freeze. He reminded himself that he had told Yoko when they married that he was the last remains of the Nara Shadow Clan (or, had been before Shikaku had his own children). He has told her anyway, what did it matter if she had known in advance?

Well. Actually. I was pretty important. It meant that there was a leak and she somehow learned from her own sources. Which meant someone knew the identities of at least one Shadow Clan. He had never even told Yoshiko.

Furthermore, the effect of Nara blood on other bloodlines was definitely a secret. He only knew it because he was warned not to marry into any bloodlines with obvious physical traits like the Uchiha or Hyuuga as it could have… dangerous consequences.

The Hokage sighed.

"I feared such a thing. Very well. I am about to share an A rank secret with you both. There is another mokuton user within Konoha's ranks. He will identify himself as Yoko's brother and will teacher Hideo to use the mokuton with the understanding that he will be joining ANBU, should he be suitable." Should he be loyal .

Shoichi twitched as a figure appeared on the Hokage's left. He had eerie black eyes, a mockery of Yoko's own dark wide eyes. His hair was only a shade or two darker than Asano's. He wore a faceplate like the one worn by the second Hokage. He looked like Yoko's brother.

"During his time with you, he will go by the name Yohei. He is your younger brother and has been a dedicated shinobi since your eldest child was born. Yohei spends most of his time working long term missions in distant countries. He is almost 10 years younger than Yoko, so you have never been close, which is why they hadn't met him and you don't know very much about each other."

"Hai Hokage-sama," Yoko and the so called 'Yohei' said in unison. Shoichi echoed it a moment later.

"He will move into a nearby building within a week at which point you will introduce him." The Hokage continued, more tense than Shoichi had seen him since the war when he stood on the balcony and declared to Konoha that they were at war. "Shoichi, you may go," The Hokage said with a brief nod while Shoichi moved towards the door, pausing momentarily if he would say the same to Yoko. He did not.

Sometimes he forgot that Yoko had been part of ANBU. Most days she was his wife, the mother of his children, the woman he came home to. In his day to day life he forgot that she used to have use of both her legs. That she had likely murdered hundreds. He forgot that she was so dedicated to Konoha that when Yoshiko went rogue, Yoko killed her.

Yoko killed her sister.

Sometimes it was easy to forget the worst parts of a person when, in so many of their interactions he saw only the best parts of her.

Shoichi walked home slowly, trying very very hard not to think about the changes that were coming into his life. (It was impossible, his brain was analysing the new information without his consent. That said, he could try be purposefully obvious to the outcomes he arrived at. The important thing would be that he tried .)

"You found out, didn't you?" Asano asked. Shoichi's left foot twitched in surprise (he had worked very hard to train his foot to be one of his biggest tells). Somehow he had already arrived home, and Asano was waiting at the door?

"I found out what?" Shoichi probed, dark acceptance sinking into his gut as he remembered the secret his children had been hiding from him years ago. Hideo's chakra exhaustion. Taro's childish attempts at secret keeping Asano, trying to sneak out with her brothers. He had expected (hoped) it would be something easy - like Taro being gay! Or Hideo accidentally using chakra in a fight on the playground. Or Asano having the renown bloodline.

Asano was a good secret keeper. If she had the mokuton he wouldn't have ever had to learn about it because she would have never used it in public.

Most of the time Shoichi liked to pretend that his daughter didn't have nightmares every night, that she recognised references she had no right to recognise. Most nights he pretended that she didn't murmur, and whimper, and plead in gibberish as she laid in bed between him and Yoko. Shoichi sometimes indulged in self deception.

"Tou-san! I'm not silly!" Asano said, using a more childish tone than she ever used naturally. "Nao-sensei said to never tell anyone what you think that they think until they've told you what they think." Then she paused, as if realising that she had made no sense what so ever. "Anyway! Where is Hideo?"

"Hideo is at the hospital, sweetheart." Shoichi said, laying down the sofa, knowing that Asano would take the opportunity to crawl onto him, which she did.

"Why is Hideo in the hospital?" Asano murmured, her head resting on his chest.

"He got chakra exhaustion, he'll be fine tomorrow." Shoichi replied, running a hand through his daughter's hair. It looked so much like that of 'Yohei' that some part of him wondered if Yohei truly was Yoko's brother, and the all that had been said there had been an act specifically for him. As a shinobi, it was important that one accepted the reality to which they were presented though. Killing enemies is good. Enemies killing allies is evil . We are the good guys.

"Hideo recovers from chakra exhaustion really quickly." Asano said, tapping a pointer finger gently on his shirt over a scar on his shoulder from a poisoned attack.

"Is Tou-san home?" Kimiko called from her room. Shoichi reached up to protect his ears.

"YEAH! HE'S OUT HERE ON THE SOFA!" Asano called from less than a metre away from his ear. Asano was weak in a lot of parts. Her skin was sensitive, her digestive system was sensitive (although improving), her immune system was weak. Her voice was not weak, not in the slightest.

A few moments later Kimiko climbed on top of Asano.

"I'm an Asano-sandwich," Asano laughed and Kimiko giggled. Shoichi took a deep breath, causing Asano to clamp her arms around his sides as she and Kimiko wobbled unsteadily. He could deal with this. It wasn't the end of the world. He loves his family.

Chapter 30: Previously on... -Taro

Notes:

This chapter could also be called Skewered, or Skrewed because I wanted joke it in

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Two weeks previously

The thought rings in my head for days . Head of the Senju Clan. Heir to the Senju Clan. Leader of the Senju. But behind it all is a growing thought that there was more . That there were parts of the conversation left unsaid in favour of what was (hopefully) the most important. So I goes to Tou-san, on one of the rare occasions he's home instead of just stopping by. (Ka-san is easier to talk to, by virtue of always being home, but Tou-san is more likely to actually tell me, especially if it doesn't paint the village in a particularly bright light.)

"Tou-san," I say, suddenly nervous in a way that is totally unlike my anxiety before the final exam. It tugs a little inside that maybe I don't want to know . Still, I continue, "was there more you had to tell me, after being part of the Senju Clan?" Tou-san looks up from the book he's reading.

It's late. Everyone else is in bed. The autumn chill means Tou-san is covered in blankets. I myself have the blanket from my bed wrapped around my shoulders. The air is soft and still, and still smells faintly of dinner, even now that my mouth is minty fresh.

Tou-san nods.

"Your mother is from the original Shadow Clan. I am from the Nara's Shadow Clan. I am the half brother of Shikaku, the current Clan Head." Tou-san pauses and sits up, gesturing for me to sit beside him. "However, unlike the Senju Shadow Clan, most clans have each Clan Head start a Shadow Clan of their own. So while we are the current Shadow Clan of the Nara, there will be another family, with a son or daughter a little bit younger than Shikamaru - the current Clan Heir.

"When it comes to being an old Shadow Clan, there are two choices, basically marry and procreate carefully while never carrying the Clan name until the amount of blood from the clan is minute. Or, you fold into the clan as a 'vassal family'. No one uses vassals anymore except for Shadow Clans, but everyone pretends otherwise. Basically you get the Nara name, but not the rights until something like three generations later."

I lean against Tou-san, slightly confused.

"Why does it matter then? We aren't going to be a vassal family of the Nara, so why does it matter?"

"Because, of the 'marry and procreate carefully' bit. The Nara Clan has a clan secret which you must not tell anyone ." Tou-san pauses, so I nod and murmur,

"I promise."

"The Nara blood… it strengthens all other bloodlines. This is important for several reasons, partly because if everyone found out it would be highly problematic for the Nara, and for you it's important because it means that you have to be carefully who you have kids with. You can't have kids with anyone who has physical evidence of their bloodline, basically. No doujutsu, no people who turn to water, no people who turn to rock. All of those will backfire on your offspring, in a really powerful way."

"Oh okay," I say, mostly in shock, although part of me doesn't care because I'm not sure I want kids anyway. Tou-san smiles and nods, then he pats my hand and leaves the room. I sit in the living room of the house I've spent my whole life growing up in, and I wonder. What is in my future?

Tomorrow morning I will meet my teammates. I'll admit to being a touch nervous, I've been told many times that my genin team will be my second family, my home away from home. I am a great many things, smart, attractive, and cunning. I can almost profess that I am also lazy, antisocial, and on occasion, arrogant. The closest I've ever gotten to a friendship was a rivalry with Mito, and she'd dead anyway.

I'm worried that they'll be weak, or creepy, or friends already. I'm worried I'll be the useless, creepy, loner.

These thoughts, occasionally interrupted by the shocked echo in my head that tells me I am from two different clans, are how I fall asleep.

In the morning, Ka-san wakes me from my place on the couch, and she rubs my hair and tells me that even if I don't like my genin team, or they don't like me, it'll work out. She says she's never heard of a genin team that starts of smoothly. She pulls me into an awkward hug and promises that even if my genin team doesn't work out, I can still thrive, as a person and as a shinobi.

The she goes to make breakfast, and I am left with the reminder that I adore my family.

My Ka-san is loyal, and loving, and fierce. My Tou-san is calm, and logical, and caring. Hideo is optimistic, emotionally intelligent, and strong in a way I will never manage. Asano is resourceful and cunning, as well as loving each and every one of us, to the bottom of her heart. Kimiko is soft and civilian, in a way the rest of us have never managed (not since we thought Ka-san was dead in the hospital). She's also sneaky and manipulative, in a way that doesn't match her appearance.

I love each of them, so, so much.

My breakfast tastes more strongly than I can remember it ever tasting before. The rice is warm and fluffy and the miso is delicious and cleansing. The fish is perfect, despite being slightly over cooked and the vegetables crunch fantastically in my mouth.

Before I leave, I hug each and everyone of my family members, even Tou-san who isn't working today and is therefore still sleeping.

Today I meet my genin team, made up of Koji, an orphan, and Sachi Inuzuka. Koji is dead last, with is not great, he's rather loud too, but I maintain optimistic over the fact that he doesn't seem stupid, just distractible. Sachi is, like most clan children, pretty arrogant. Which is strange considering I'm the one who ranked top of the class, not her.

Our team leader is Noritaka Hoga, a jonin. In fact, Nori-sensei is a really impressive jonin. He's super into following the shinobi rules, and said that he would take us on as a team as long as we could spar with him for 30 minutes straight.

Koji ended up being both super useful, and incredibly useless. Which is an impressive mix. After Nori-sensei told us what we had to do, I suggested that we each spar him for 10 minutes, in two five minute segments. He was convinced that he could fight Nori-sensei for the whole thirty minutes on his own. Which was good for getting Sachi to step up and do her part, but when it came to the actual fighting, Koji was pretty useless.

Ka-san had spent hours drilling Hideo and I on her taijutsu style, which used a fair bit of brute force. The style worked better for Hideo, since he's naturally a bit stronger and more active than I am, but I'm older and taller, which evens the two of us out.

Against someone who is so significantly better than I am, I know I'll be pretty useless. That said, I can use the three basic jutsu, I'm not terrible at taijutsu (for my age), and I can break D-rank genjutsu. As I expect, it's all pretty useless.

We pass, in the end. But it wasn't much of a spar, more like, ' can you stand getting utterly destroyed for five minutes and still be willing to go for another five?' Afterward Nori-sensei criticised that we each took turns instead of working together, and although I pointed out that we had never worked together before, he said we had to start somewhere.

One week before Special (the previous chapter)

On one hand, Team 5 is going a lot better than expected. Sachi, Koji, and myself don't get on great , but we can work together, and that's what's important. Nori-sensei trains up daily, although we haven't be allowed to start missions yet.

I can't see a lot of improvement yet, but it feels like we're getting better.

On the other hand, I still don't really want to be a shinobi. I've decided that I'll get to chunin and then get a desk job, which Ka-san looks down on… a lot. But I'll be alive, and hopefully not a traitor. Also, Nori-sensei trains up hard .

Every damn morning I am sore.

He doesn't let me nap, so I've been sleeping through the night. It feels a touch unnatural, I'll admit. Koji is getting more annoyed the longer we go without a mission, and Sachi has finally introduced us to her partner. His name is Uekibachi, which means flower pot, but she calls him 'Bachi' most of the time. Bachi is basically adorable. He's small and brown with a wrinkled face. Sachi said that he's a Tosa Inu, which means exactly nothing to me.

Bachi is unanimous the favourite teammate. He enjoys chasing butterflies and getting belly rubs.

One day after Chapter 29: Special

When I woke up, I realised Hideo wasn't in bed. Which was not particularly strange, classes started half an hour before I had to meet Nori-sensei. What was strange, was that his bed was made.

Hideo was a creature of habit, for the most part. Each morning he would roll out of bed to get breakfast downstairs. Then he would force me awake, because if he was awake, then we should both suffer. Then he would dress and get ready for his day and just before he leaves, Hideo makes his bed.

I mostly thinks it's unfair that Hideo doesn't wake Asano, but Hideo claims Asano needs the sleep.

The realisation that Hideo isn't there is just a prickle in my mind though. I pull my blanket over my shoulders and shuffle downstairs for breakfast. The floorboards are warm from the bakery downstairs and it's ever so tempting to go back to sleep on top of them.

"Taro? Is that you?" Ka-san says, voice drifting from the kitchen.

"Yeah, it's me. What's for breakfast," I ask with a smile. Breakfast is the same every morning.

"Taro, please come into the kitchen for a moment." Ka-san says, sounding almost tense. I wander in a collapse into a chair, resting my head onto the table. I pull my blanket over my head and everything is blissfully dark. Now if only I could just remove the muscles from my body. That would be good.

"I think I need to take an ice bath before I leave." I tell Ka-san. Ice baths are supposed to help with aching muscles, but I've been putting one off because it sounds miserable. Unfortunately, I have now reached the point that I would rather be frozen than in this pain.

"Did you know that Hideo could grow trees?" Ka-san asks from the side of the kitchen.

"Hideo has the mokuton? No, I didn't," I say, before promptly changing my mind because no one would ever believe Hideo chose to hide it. "Of course I did!" I say, trying to put all of the sarcasm I have available into those words.

"Then why didn't I know?" Now Ka-san has is this special voice that Asano affectionately calls the " You're in fucking trouble voice" I have no idea where Asano learned such language! But it's pretty fucking true.

"Because I told him to keep it hidden until he was better at it." I say, trying to sound scornful and dismissive. Mostly my thought process is just a series of repetitive swear words because I'm panicking to much to use more variety. "Why do you think you know now?" I say, as if Hideo revealing it to someone at some point somewhere was my idea.

"Oh?" Ka-san says, in that voice.

I am so screwed.

Notes:

Questions!
1) Who is your favourite character?
2) Who is your least favourite character?
3) Who do you want to see interacting with Asano (or others? I guess? If you want)

Chapter 31: Oji-san - Taro

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Less than a week after Hideo revealed his gift (and I had to pay Asano since I'd bet he wouldn't share it unless one or both of us told him too), Ka-san's brother arrived. She'd warned us that her brother had spent most of his life on the frontlines, and sometimes had odd behaviour because of it.

He arrived in the evening with a quiet knock on the front door that only Hideo, who had been sitting nervously nearby, heard. I had been upstairs sulking because the pay from my first C-rank mission would go to Asano. (Why, you ask, would I offer the pay of my next C-rank mission in a gamble, you ask? Well… I'd been confident. Hideo had successfully hidden it for years before we made the bet. I hadn't placed it until Asano joined the academy after all.)

"Taro! Get down here!" Ka-san called from downstairs. Staying upstairs was a good way to avoid Ka-san, but she wouldn't stand it when she wanted us to come down. And she could get herself upstairs, but it was very slow. She had to balance the wheels on each step before using rather a lot of upper body strength to to up. More commonly she would get off her wheelchair and just go up on her bottom. The way Kimiko and Asano did when they were toddlers. (Hideo and I probably did it too, but I can't remember.)

"Coming!" I shout down, wandering downstairs. This time without my blanket around my shoulders since Ka-san told me if I made a bad first impression she would lock it away (she also specified that carrying or bringing a blanket would count too.) The only reason I'm not more upset is that Ka-san did the same for all of us - even Kimiko who's like. Six. (Basically a baby.)

"Hello, I am Yohei, Yoko's younger brother."

"Nice to meet you Oji-san." I say, giving a slight bow. I think I'm supposed to? I can never remember Ka-san's instructions on culture, since she hasn't bothered to give them in years.

"Oji-san?" Asano says, peeking out of Kimiko's room. Upon seeing our new uncle's face she lights up and runs out, pulling a reluctant Kimiko along with her. "Oji-san! Oji-san! What do you do? Are you a jonin? Do you know any super strong shinobi? Are you in the Bingo book?"

I watch as this bizarre facsimile to my sister launches an avalanche of questions onto someone who is practically a stranger.

"Asano." Ka-san says sternly, shutting Asano up promptly. "Don't be rude Asano, he'll be visiting for the next few years at least."

"Right," Asano says, voice back to her normal, not at all a screech, pitch. She sighs, bows slightly, "Nice to meet you Oji-san. I am Asano, the eldest daughter, and this is Kimiko, the youngest child." Kimiko sends Asano a venomous look before bowing awkwardly.

"Ah, Yoko always did love the older, formal ways," Yohei observes, he smiles and returns an incorrect bow. We're all used to it though. The only other families that really use the proper names and bows are the Uchiha and the Hyuuga. Or rather, just the Hyuuga, who are actually more formal.

"Come Otouto," Ka-san calls. After a pause and a brief look of confusion, Yohei answers. As soon as he leaves the room, Asano turns to me and whispers,

"He's not Ka-san's brother." The look of absolute certainty on Asano's face makes me hesitate. I don't disagree with her though. For one thing, Asano has a way of knowing these things. Much like she learned about Hideo's mokuton only a day after me, she was also the first to know about the Uchiha Massacre, and when one of the teachers at the academy was fired.

He acted… off of what I would expect from Ka-san's brother. I could imagine having not met him until now, I probably would never see Ka-san if she had a choice. She's a strong believer in working as hard as possible after all.

"Dinner!" Ka-san calls, Asano turns and Kimiko tugs her hand out of Asano hold. Hideo's already in the kitchen waiting for us. He looks a little bit miserable. But in a discrete way so Ka-san won't get mad at him.

"I'm home!" Tou-san shouts, presumably from where he's throwing himself in through the window. For some reason he almost never uses the door. We all settle around the table. A new chair has been placed at the now crowded table. I don't remember much from before Asano's birth, but I remember that the house was very large and very empty. Now I'm bigger, and there are more people. Fitting in seven people to our table… it's too many.

"So," Ka-san says, settling in between Tou-san and our new Oji-san. "We've been thinking of moving. You four are getting so big now, and it'll be years before you start leaving to get married. Now with Hideo and Yohei here needing space to practice, your Tou-san and I will be looking for houses on the edges of Konoha."

"But Ka-san!" Asano moans, "then the walk to the academy will be even longer!"

"You always need more exercise anyway, Asano." Ka-san says with a pointed look. Asano is without a doubt the least active of us. Oji-san looks like he feels guilty for something.

"And since my darling Otouto is here," Ka-san says, smiling teasingly at Oji-san, who looks embarrassed. "We'll need an extra room anyway."

"It's fine… Ane-"

"Don't bother, I know you prefer the more casual, modern terms. I don't mind." Ka-san gives dramatic sigh, "even my darling Kodomo call each other by name."

Ka-san only calls us Kodomo when she's joking or referring to all four of us these days, so Asano and Hideo grin. It used to drive Ka-san mad that we never called each other by our titles. It was too confusing for poor little Asano with two older brothers. Even though we tried to use different names.

I give a small sigh, put my hand on my chest, and promptly feel Asano's hand on my face, keeping me from sharing the story.

"No!" Asano says sharply. I nod, grin, then ignore her.

"It's only 'cause when we were little Asano couldn't tell us apart. Except Hideo wasn't allowed to hold her after he dropped her. It was a huge fiasco for a while." I finish, with a nod. Tou-san is smiling softly at the memory. Only because he wasn't there when it happened though. Ka-san, having been there herself, is scowling. There had been so much crying . On both Asano's and Hideo's part.

The discussion of housing is completely lost in the fray as Asano takes revenge by telling Oji-san about the time that I slept through my own birthday, only to have tantrum upon realising I missed it.

That night, as Ka-san sends off to bed, she adds,

"Tomorrow we're all going to the doctor." Along with the hugs and kisses and murmurs of love. Great .

Notes:

1) Why do you think Hideo revealed his mokuton?

2) What has your favourite scene so far been?

3) What is something that you find confusing in the story so far?

Chapter 32: Hallways - Taro

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

That night Asano has a nightmare. Not an uncommon occurrence, and like all the others it's absolutely silent. She rolls around for a minute, freezes, and wakes up. Usually she'll just go back to sleep. Tonight must have been a bad one though since she goes downstairs to sleep with Ka-san and Tou-san.

I wonder if her nightmare is because of our new 'Oji-san'.

True to Ka-san's promise, the next morning we are all bundled up, including Tou-san and Oji-san and all seven of us mobbed Konoha Hospital. Strangely, upon arrival, a nurse almost immediately arrived to deliver them to a doctor. A new doctor.

"But Ka-san," Asano said, tugging on Ka-san's sleeve where it rested on her armrests, "what about my doctor?"

"Not today Asano, today we're seeing a special doctor."

"Oh," Asano made a quiet, sad sound that Ka-san ignored completely.

"Alright, we all need a turn so we'll go by age. Me, then Tou-san, then your Oji-san, then Taro and so on." Ka-san said, making her way into the examination room. The doctor closed to the door and all six of them were left in the hallway. Standing. Awkwardly.

"Tou-san?" Asano asked, "don't I need to go to school today?"

"Nope, you've got the day off, Darling."

"Oh okay."

And then silence. It wasn't common in their house, given that both Kimiko and Hideo were fairly loud, but Kimiko was asleep in Tou-san's arms, and Hideo was looking rather a lot like a zombie. Oji-san seemed the most awkward.

"So Oji-san," Asano started, I didn't resist the massive sigh which was completely ignored. (Well, except for Oji-san who just…. looked at me for a second. Like one whole second. It was kinda creepy.) "Can we meet your teammates?"

"No."

"Oh. Do you know any famous nin- shinobi?" Asano tripped over her words and I did hold back the eyeroll. Asano hadn't accidentally tripped over her words since she started at the academy.

"No."

"Do you know the Toad Sage?! Or Ahhhhh-" Shinobi, being as secretive as they are, don't have a lot of 'famous' character among them. Especially when it came to ones civilians knew. "The white fang? Do you know him?"

"He's dead, idiot," I say, lovingly nudging Asano with my shoulder. She falls over and glares at me for a moment before getting 'distracted' by Oji-san. It's too bad Tou-san isn't home often enough to recognise what she's doing. Especially since the same thing happens to him.

I think Tou-san forgets that Asano is nine, not three. (Not that Asano helps in the matter with her actions. Always cuddling. Like a child . Ew.)

"Oh. Um. None? You don't know any famous shinobi?"

Oji-san shook his head. Asano drooped. Tou-san gave a significant look at Oji-san. Probably something along the lines of ' if you upset my daughter, you better make it right or I'll decapitate you and offer her your head' . Something like that. Tou-san is wrapped around Asano's little finger.

"My senpai is a very strong shinobi," Oji-san offered weakly.

"Can I meet him?!" Asano asked, looking ecstatic, then a moment later added "or her!"

"Um.."

"Please? Pretty please? With a kunai on top?"

Asano said things somethings… They just didn't make sense. Why would the appearance of a please make a difference? Why is she using the formal please? Why would there be a kunai on the please?

"He's very busy…-"

"Then he can come after a mission and Ka-san will make him dinner! 'Cause all his food'll have gone bad probably!" Asano insisted, before mock whispering to Oji-san, "Tou-san said that if Ka-san didn't make food, he would've starved after missions 'cause he wouldn't have any food and he wouldn't want to go out." Then a pause and Asano's eyes widened theatrically, "do you think that your senpai starves after missions?"

Even though Oji-san clearly knew what Asano was doing (it was obvious to any shinobi that wasn't Tou-san), the thought still seemed to alarm him.

I do a small quiet sigh, for variety.

"I will ask," Oji-san says finally, "but he doesn't like people very much."

"That's okay!" Asano chirps (chirps? It should be illegal to chirp after you get older than… like seven.) "I don't like people either!" Oji-san looks vaguely alarmed and Asano looks a bit like a cat that's caught the canary.

There's a moment of silence before Ka-san rolls out of the office and holds her arms out for Tou-san to give her Kimiko.

"You're turn," she tells Tou-san who smiles, places a kiss on her forehead (which she looks vaguely alarmed at) and goes into the mysterious room.

"Why aren't there any chairs," Asano says, breaking the silence. Yet again . Oji-san gives her a brief glance, then I watch as he decides to ignore her and turn straight forward. After another few moments of calm, relaxing silence, Asano interrupt again.

"Why won't any of you answer me?" Hideo, who had leaned against the wall, and then slid down into a ball against the wall, shushes her loudly before readjusting a bit and going back to sleep.

Asano sent Hideo a face that… well it could be best described as a dramatic frown. Like her lips turned into… like an upside down smile? And her eyebrows furrow? She looks either angry… or maybe grumpy? It's a strange look.

"Do you have anything I can read, Oji-san?" Asano asks, slipping past Ka-san and tugging on his green chunin vest.

"Uhhh-" Oji-san gets a slightly panicked look and turns to Ka-san. Asano, bolstered by the lack of an immediate denial, starts to open one of his vest pockets. Oji-san grabs Asano's hand and stares at her for a moment. "Don't go into my vest. Bad ."

Oji-San even shakes a finger at her, like he's scoulding a puppy. It looks… rehearsed maybe? Asano takes a couple of steps back, a genuinely upset look appearing on her face.

"I'm not a dog ya' know. Ya' could've jus' said ya' didn't wanna share." She said, crossing her arms and tucking her chin down against her right shoulder. Then she moved around Oji-san towards the back wall Hideo was leaning against, and joined him. Or rather, also leaned against the wall, several metres away.

Oji-san sent another look towards Ka-san who had watched the entire thing with a blank face.

"Don't worry about it Yohei, she wouldn't have actually listened to you saying you didn't want to share." She paused before adding, "and getting over dramatically upset over small things is a family trait."

The feeling of doom emanating from Asano's piece of wall turned sharply to annoyance before shift back into doom. Ka-san wasn't wrong.

After a few, gloriously peaceful minutes of silence I moved behind Ka-san to lean against the wall to get lost in my thoughts.

The next thing I know, Oji-san has a hand on my shoulder, telling me it's my turn to go in. I just have to say, from an arm's distance away Oji-san's faceplate is a lot scarier. It's got cuts and marks all over it, but the Konoha symbol plate is perfectly clean.

What does that even mean ? Mostly it just looks like he got the plate replaced. But what if if it means something? It also makes him look a bit like the statue of Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, on the Hokage monument.

"Taro, it's your turn," Ka-san says from a metre away. I jump. Pulling myself out of my thoughts and back into a reality of movement where other people can't read my thoughts.

The check up is actually pretty boring. They ask about any previous check ups I've had, take a blood sample. Use a little pokey thing to look at my chakra channels. They (I say they because the doctor is completely androgynous in appearance) use a giant piece of machinery to look at my chakra points, making a few notes on a clipboard along the way.

They have me channel chakra into what looks like? A giant fat thermometer? Like the old fashioned kind? I grab the ball end, push some chakra into it, and the 'temperature' goes up. It doesn't go very far, which is a little disappointing. They test my chakra balance using a seal which they place on my forehead then don't let me see the results of (rude).

Then they push me out the door to get Hideo. In the hallway Asano is sitting against the wall reading a book that still has the bookstore logo on it. Clearly she has gotten her way. Hideo looks actually awake now, and so does Kimiko who is crouched next to Asano and doing her best to read it.

It takes another hour before we're all finished, by which time we are all starving . I barely remember to notice that the doctor never told us the result of the test.

Notes:

1) How badly do you want to see Kakashi? (Cause I want to see him quite badly, I'll admit)

2) Which character in this chapter do you think embodies you most?

3) What canon plot/arc do you really want to see in this fic?

BTW, this chapter really makes me think of Whispered Nothings by The Literate Devil which you can find here: s/12411926/1/Whispered-Nothings it's 140k of self insert. If you like long fits with Team Minato, hints of tragedy, and a slightly different take on self inserts, then you should check it out!

Chapter 33: Murphy's Law - Shoichi

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

A day after the exams, Yoko and Shoichi are called to the Hokage's office where 'Yohei' is already waiting.

"Hokage," Yoko says, chest dipping even from her wheelchair. After a pause Shoichi give a deep bow and sit beside her in the comfortable seats provided.

"I have gotten the results of the examination. As expected, neither of you possess the mokuton. Your eldest," The Hokage checks his file, "Taro, has a fire affinity like Shoichi. Same with your youngest. Hideo, as expected, has the mokuton. Your eldest daughter though. There are a number of special things about her." Yoko nods,

"She was born prematurely because of the Kyuubi attack. The doctors said that there were a number of things that could be wrong because of it."

"First and foremost, her chakra channels are far too wide, and they're quite brittle. I have been informed that this phenomenon is likely what is causes to to become ill." The Hokage paused, and in a sympathetic voice said, "It also means that she will not live to see old age."

After a moment of silence the Hokage continues.

"Asano's chakra nature is wood, which we know by looking at her blood. If you look at her chakra points though, they're so burnt her chakra type is indistinguishable. If her chakra channels were smaller, she could probably work around it, unfortunately there is a third piece working against her." The Hokage shifted some paperwork around, pulling on piece of paper up and handing it over to Yoko. Shoichi glances at the paper but the markings on it mean nothing to him.

"Asano's chakra is strongly out of balance. Her yin chakra is nearly three times that of her yang. This is from Shoichi I believe, although it's much stronger in your daughter. Shoichi, your chakra is a balance of two units of yang chakra to three units of yin chakra."

There are words unspoken in that statement. The Nara generally have a balance of one unit of yang to two units of yin. Shoichi's blood is diluted so it makes sense that his balance is closer to normal. Asano's though is even more unbalanced than a full blooded Nara's.

"Functionally, Asano has no elemental nature. It's been suggested that she may not be able to use elemental chakra at all, for the three aforementioned reasons. That said, she possesses the mokuton gene which means that it will likely be passed down to her children."

Both Yoko and Shoichi stiffened. Konoha was not the type of place to turn Asano into a broodmare, but not all of the people within Konoha agreed with this. Asano would be at risk. Unlike Hideo she didn't have the advantage of the mokuton, just the weakness.

"Asano's information has of course been kept private. Only those of us in this room and the doctor know of it." The Hokage didn't say the doctor was ANBU, but Shoichi could read it in the way Yoko relaxed ever so slightly.

The Hokage sighed,

"Unfortunately, this is all speculation. The effects of her special situation are unknown as nothing like this has ever happened before, therefore Asano will join Hideo in his training until Yohei is satisfied."

All Shoichi could think was that such a thing was cruel indeed. To tell Asano that she almost had something but didn't, and then force her to watch as Hideo mastered something she would never be able to touch. Why did the Hokage want her to do this?

"You may go Shoichi," the Hokage nodded as Shoichi bowed and left the room. Confusion made his head feel fuzzy.

Would he lose two children to ANBU? Why would Asano need training? Who was 'Yohei'? Why was Asano's chakra so out of balance? What was the Hokage thinkings?

Notes:

This chapter... I am not happy with it. Unfortunately I wasted a lot of time trying to make it likeable so I'm a bit squished for time now, and I'm still not happy with it.

1) What do you think they talk about when Shoichi's gone?

2) Would you prefer to see more academy life, or move to graduation sooner?

3) Who do you think Asano's teammates will be when she graduates?

Chapter 34: Ice Cream - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Afterwards Asano wanders through the wild forest outside of Konoha's walls, grieving. Her fingers brush the rough bark of the trees as she walks by and the nature chakra she can hear within makes her heart hurt . She will never be able to move the trees, but she could've, in a another world, in another universe she would be able to. But then… she wouldn't be who she is, would she?

Sakura needs to see Asano, who left school early that day because 'I think it's important to bunk at least once in your life. And we aren't doing anything important today. Sakura's not sure that Asano really understands the spirit of bunking… but Sakura doesn't mind, Asano seemed a bit distracted anyway.

Sakura really wanted to rant to her best friend right now, and she couldn't find her! After wandering around for a bit in an heartbroken/angry/betrayed/frustrated rage, Sakura goes to her house. Hideo meets her at the door. He leads her to a park and points her towards the forest.

Sakura thanks him, for the help finding Asano, and his help the other day. Then she goes to find her best friend.

In a haunted grove of trees Asano is standing, looking for forloren, but not teary. Sakura goes up and gives Asano a huge hug. That's when Asano starts crying.

Now, despite being an absolute cry baby, Sakura didn't have much of an idea of how to deal with this. The best she could come up with (well…. Inner mentioned it actually) was 'do you want me to punch someone for you?' but that didn't really seem to fit the tone of the crying.

Does crying have a tone? You might wonder. The answer is yes, yes it does. (At it's simplest there's happy crying and sad crying and angry crying and it can be hard to tell even those three apart without context, Inner explains, looking quite a look like Nao-sensei in front of the chalkboard.)

After a few (awkward) minutes, Asano's tears stop, and she pulls a handkerchief out of nowhere. (What the heck?! Inner makes a big show of looking around for where it came from. And comes up empty.)

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Asano says, gazing at Sakura shirt. Sakura looks down to find it covered in tears and snot.

"Eh, it'll be fine. Want to come over to my house?" Sakura says, waving it off. "We can talk about it if you want, otherwise you can just reorganise the bookcases."

"Yeah. I- S- I'd love to." Asano finally manages. Sakura grabs her hand and pulls her (gently) towards Sakura's district. Asano had visited before, but they both tended to prefer the Sakurai household (food make itself there).

It's early evening, so the streets are busy and loud. Sakura always finds it interesting, she'll often see her classmates at the market near her house. It's pretty fancy, so Sakura herself doesn't go there. Instead she goes to the tiny row of streets just a few rows always. The builds are so close together you can't even fit a single cart.

Asano's never been down here. Not because Sakura's hiding it, they've just never had a reason to. Tonight though, Sakura pulls Asano down the street and into the store that sells the best ice cream in all of Fire Country.

For some reason Choji is inside... ?

Here's something Sakura and Asano agree upon. It sucks to see people you know, outside of the context you expect. (Sakura mostly feels this way because she tends to run into the mean ones, but regardless.)

"What're you doing here?!" Inner says. It must be Inner. Sakura would never say something like that.

"Oh." Choji looks appropriate surprised, so Sakura's pretty sure it isn't just an evil conspiracy theory to make Asano feel uncomfortable. (How such thing would work, Sakura has no idea, Asano has just repeatedly insisted it was a thing with some… interesting… evidence.)

" See ," Asano hisses into her ear. Dear Sage, Asano is definitely going to take this as evidence.

"I was buying ice cream. They've got the best stuff you know." Choji says, like it's obvious. It kinda is, since if Sakura bothered to read the labels of the containers in his arms.

"That's why we're here too!" Sakura says, trying her best to smile and sound casual. Choji seems nice. He probably won't care if she's awkward. Right? Right?

"I thought that the Akimichi made their own food," Asano said, looking at Choji closely, "as well as for most of Konoha." Choji smiled brightly, ignoring the accusatory tone.

"We do! But ice cream was invented by this lady in Snow Country, and she's the one that makes this stuff! She even gave us the recipe and everything, but her stuff is better."

"Which flavour's your favourite?" Asano asked, leaning forward in a way that would be intimidating if Asano wasn't… like half Choji's size.

"Hmmm. Well they're all really good," Choji said slowly, "but I'd have to say that cookie dough is my favourite. It's really unusual and the chunks of cookie dough makes the texture more interesting."

"Oh that's my favourite too!" Sakura says, trying to break up the tension. Asano gives her an exasperated look before saying,

"You both have terrible taste in ice cream, chocolate chunk is clearly the best. That said, Choji, would you like to join us for ice cream?"

"Ehhh?" Choji and Sakura say in unison. Asano is… rather intensely private for the most part.

"Or- ah- if that's okay with Sakura, since we're going to her house." Asano adds, blushing slightly and glancing at Sakura who waves it off.

"I'm fine with it!" Sakura genuinely doesn't mind, but right now ? She hadn't told Asano she wanted to talk though, and it's probably not fair to assume Asano can read her mind. (You never know with Asano, Inner points out. She knows things like magic sometimes.)

Choji looks a touch stunned.

"If you're busy or don't want to, don't worry about it." Asano says with a fake smile before moving past Choji to pull out a couple boxes of ice cream. "Oh shoot, Sakura I don't have any money on me!" Sakura sighs. Asano hates not having a job, but no one will hire a nine year old (she tried).

"I've got some," Sakura says, pulling the wallet full of ryo she found on the table this morning. Her dad must have stopped by the house at some point last night. Sakura pushed the bitter lump in her chest down at the reminder that he hadn't even said 'hi' and pulled out enough for two buckets of ice cream.

"So, what'd you say?" Asano asks again, poking a frozen Choji in the side with her elbow.

"Sure?" Choji says, looking a bit confused, "I don't need to be home for a few hours, and Shikamaru's busy today anyway."

"Sweet, come on then," Asano said, waiting as Sakura paid the lady behind the counter who looked completely zoned out of reality.

Once they were down the street, Choji walking between the two of them, Asano started complaining about how cold the ice cream was. When Choji, being the nice person he was, offered to carry it, Asano paused and leaned in, again .

"Are you like? A real person? Because most people just laugh at me when I say that." Asano grinned, straightening up and continuing forward, "you've ruined it now. 'Cause I would feel guilty for making you carry my ice cream, so I can't complain about it anymore. Which stinks, cause I love complaining."

"Like Shikamaru?" Choji suggested with a secretive smile. Asano stumbled over nothing before smirking.

"Yeah, something like Shikamaru." Asano says smiling, Choji sends her a look that Sakura doesn't understand.

It's great that Asano's being more social, but does she have to be more social now ?

Notes:

A/N:
1) How do you feel about the idea of fic recs included at the end of chapters?

2) What are your thoughts on Choji?

3) What was your favourite part of this chapter?

Chapter 35: Contrast - Choji

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Choji knows that he not special or interesting. He's just Choji. Shikamaru is smart, Asano is interesting, and Sakura has the coolest hair. And her's just. Choji.

So when Asano invites him over, he's surprised. When she jokes with him, he's startled. When he realises that maybe this is the Asano that Shikamaru sees, he can sorta understand his friend's crush.

Sakura is quieter, and Choji in the Shikamaru/Choji relationship perhaps? It's hard to tell, since their interactions are different from how Choji talks to Shikamaru.

Sakura's house is quiet. It feels lonely, especially in comparison to the compound. The air smells like disinfectant, the air is silent as the graveyard Choji visits three times a year. The food Sakura pulls out has slight freezer burn and the chairs in the kitchen have dust on all but one.

Everything about Sakura's house feels cold and empty.

Except for Sakura's bedroom, where they all pile in. Somehow, it's not as awkward as Choji worried it would be. It's rather pleasant actually. They all eat a bunch of ice cream, and neither of them say anything other than 'I'm glad you like it' when he eats four bowls more than either of them. (Although Sakura got a slightly sick look on her face, which would probably because she looked like she couldn't eat that much if she tired. That least, that's what Choji tried to think it was.)

Sakura's bedroom was very… pink. The bed, the ceiling, and the curtains were varying shades of pink. In contrast her walls are covered in books, floor to ceiling. A lot of them look like they're silly books, with picture of girls wearing civilian schoolgirl outfits and holding sticks with stars on the end. Others though have thick spines and look heavy .

Choji wishes Shikamaru was here. But at same time, he's almost glad he's not. Shikamaru wouldn't have enjoyed being here, he would have been too tense, being so close to Asano. At the same time, Choji kinda likes talking to them. There's no feeling of 'like like' that Ino jokes about (they had only known each other for a year, and already she was telling him how she would marry Sasuke).

Instead Asano asked about clan training, moaned about needing to start running in the morning. Sakura had admonished Asano for talking to much (which made Asano blush, a sit quietly on her hands for a few minutes). Choji didn't really mind Asano talking all the time to be honest, be he enjoyed listening to Sakura too.

Sakura recommended a series of fictional books called The Kind Ninja which apparently was rather silly, but really funny.

Honestly, as Choji left Sakura's house, he felt like he was in a bit of a daze. They lived in a whole different world from him. His family would never let him sit in his room without snacks for more than a couple of minutes. They both seemed to be surprised when he talked about all the time he spent with his older and younger cousins.

They seemed almost confused by the exercises his family did together each morning, or the weekend lunches they shared, all 500 of them. (Not all in the same place, that only happened four or five times a year. It was a cycle and everyone met up in groups of 15 or so they changed groups each week so they could see everyone.)

It had been interesting to be in a room so quiet, even sitting with Shikamaru outside had more background noise. After a while though, it seemed quite lonely.

When Choji entered the compound he was glad to be home. Especially when he saw his Aunt waving at him and invite him to dinner, a cousin on each hip (not hers, Aunt Mana had no kids of her own, but she looked after Aunt Ren's kids when she was on a mission, which was quite often).

Notes:

1) Do you have any Choji based fic recs? Cause I've got nothing.

2) What's a canon arc you would like to see played out in this fic?

3) How do you feel about Asano and Sakura's friendship dynamic?

My fic rec for today is Project Hana by L1mey Link or that doesn't work:
s/11807917/1/Project-Hana

Project Hana is a Self Insert into Hana Inuzuka, older sister to Kiba. The fic is around 180k at this point, and has some really funny parts to it. Hana herself is an artist, an in character fan fiction writer, and a Tobirama shipper. (Yes, it's exactly as funny as it sounds.) There is also plot, if that's your thing.

Chapter 36: Emotional - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Asano," Sakura says after Choji leaves.

"Hmm?" Asano hums, laying on her back looking at the ceiling.

"My dad came home." Sakura says, trying to ignore the tears already gathering at the corner of her eyes. Asano sits up and wraps her in a hug immediately.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Asano asks, "or do you want me to distract you?"

"Can I talk about it, for a few minutes?" Sakura says as Asano pulls back, but sits so that they have several points of contact.

"As long as you want." Asano assures, pulling Sakura's hair out of it's ponytail and rubbing her head. Asano's hair was short enough not to tie it up, something Sakura encouraged because Asano kinda sucked at doing anything with her hair. For some reason she enjoyed playing with Sakura's though, which she didn't mind at all.

"He didn't even come to say hi. I haven't seen him in almost a month! I saw Mom a couple of weeks ago, and she's been over on the edges of Fire Country!" Sakura starts off, continuing and repeating a rant that she has gone over hundred times now. Each time Asano listens, mostly patiently, having finally learned to stop trying to fix it. (No, she will not booby trap her house so that her Dad gets caught. No matter how tempting it may be!)

After several minutes, Sakura feels empty. Tired, and lonely, and no matter how often Asano sleeps over her house has become a tomb.

"Do you want me to distract you now?" Asano asks softly, starting on a braid. Sakura nods. This is a tradition that isn't particularly old yet, but it makes Sakura feel warm inside. Asano could talk a lot without saying anything much at all, but she was happy to listen when Sakura needed it, even when that may not be her strongest area.

"Well let's see," Asano starts off. "I missed school, you may have noticed, because we went to the doctor. It turns out I have the mokuton, like Hideo. Except," Asano's voice sounds a bit high, like she's about to cry, "I don't have it. Or, I can't use it rather. I-" Asano's hands pull back and she's quiet for a moment. "I'm all sorts of messed up. So it turns out that being born like, four fucking months too early only to immediately feel the chakra of a demon can fuck someone up."

And now Sakura knows that Asano's really upset. Not because she's swearing, she does that sometimes, somewhat randomly. She knows because Asano's voice is high and shaky and she's crying but still talking and this has only happened once before.

"So my chakra channels are fucking huge which is also why I get sick because my chakra is too small and so much fucking scientific shit I don't understand. And I just-" Asano pauses to blow her nose, a loud wet noise that makes Sakura hold back a shudder. "I don't even care that much about having the wood release," Asano says in a quiet voice, "I just don't want to feel like the whole fucking world is against me. Like goddamn, I don't want to be here either." There's a short pause that makes Sakura worry before Asano says, "that's a lie. I love it here. Way more than I should. Who gives a fuck about video games when you can have magic? Right? Like fuck off Xbox."

Sakura has no idea what Asano's talking about anymore.

"On the plus side I know why I can detect genjutsu now." Asano says, and Sakura look at her. It'd been a mystery that Asano had pondered over several months before. "It turns out that my chakra spills a bit and it makes me a little bit chakra sensitive. I didn't realise though since I thought I'd be able to see it."

"So how do you-?" Sakura cuts herself off. It's hard to resist questions sometimes, and Asano likes the encouragement. It's better though if Asano just keeps talking until she runs out of steam, which takes longer when Sakura asks questions.

"I hear chakra. Which would actually explain a number of things. But on the fucking miserable side, it can make it really hard to hear. Not very often because my radius is about," Asano hold her arms out to their full extension, "that far, and I'm not looking to make it any wider. No thank you headaches, but still. Good to know."

There is silence for a few minutes, and Sakura wonders if Sakura's mom will care if she spends the night. Probably not.

"I think we should start running together in the mornings. Let's start tomorrow." Asano says, before jumping up to go brush her teeth.

And Sage fucking murder Asano, they fucking do. Fuck. (Inner is sleeping . So Sakura gets to think this herself. It feels somehow less fulfilling, but when she shouts it into Asano's face it is very satisfying.

Notes:

1) What do you think Sakura's parents do?

2) How do you feel about Asano's chakra sensitivity?

3) Was that suitably adorable bonding?

Fic rec for this chapter is perhaps my favourite SI OC to date: Fade to Black by Iaso
It's currently around 80k, but the first draft of the story (called Hidden Among the Shadows) stopped in excess of 250k. This is a particularly good fic to read if you're a fan of the Nara clan.
It can be found

here

and here: s/12462480/1/Fade-to-Black

Chapter 37: Running - Taro

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I am on my fifth C-rank mission, and I hate it, I remind myself. They manage to be both stressful, and boring simultaneously. Nori-sensei feels strongly like we should do as many as possible, both to help Konoha and improve their skill simultaneously. He makes us practice splitting up and getting to Konoha independently, in a case a future mission requires them to split up. He is doing this for a good reason, I repeat.

Nori-sensei sends them each with a seal that they can trigger if they need to that will give him their location. I am safe. (Ish) Besides that they are genuinely on their own though, and it's pretty terrifying my brain reminds me, which is not very fun. Every rustle of a bush is a monster and every shadow is a missing-nin.

I make the very logical decision to keep running until I get home, because Ka-san will make me soup if I look sad and cold. Which will not be hard because I am hot from running and already sad (because running, duh), and by the time it is night the air will be cold enough to chill me.

Around hour five though, I am genuinely contemplating if a missing-nin can just become farmer and live the rest of their lives happily. I could do that.

I have a future I can see for myself.

I pass the chunin exams and get a job at the mission desk. I meet a pretty civilian in five years, and five years later we get married. Even desk work plays pretty well, so she wouldn't have to work if she didn't want to, in which case we could have kid. (Or not, I don't have a strong opinion either way, but kids are what come after marriage right?) I'll abdicate the family name to Hideo, who'd like it better anyway. Asano will stop trying so hard to be a shinobi and learn to live a safer life, she's not made to be a shinobi. Kimiko will be a genin or chunin when she falls in love and retires to raise her own brood.

My family will be safe. (I will be safe.)

(Some bitter part of me points out that I'm not even needed anymore, Hideo can become the next Senju head, he's better fitted for it anyway. Much to my disgust he's even noble. After several days of pushing to understand why he would reveal himself, Asano admits that her friend was being bullied and Hideo had protected her. Some girl. As if Hideo's life was worth less than Asano's friendship. And that's what it was, his life. He's doomed, even if he doesn't know it yet.)

I am- I am alarmed at the bitterness I can feel growing inside me. It's normal, I imagine, to feel some level of annoyance and bitterness when you are the only one of your siblings who definitely won't pass on the bloodline to their children. Even Kimiko, who had no hint of it in herself, shows that her children have a 25% chance of developing the mokuton. Apparently it was in her blood or something like that.

My chakra lashes about within me, cold and viscous. (Shadows with weight, with power.) Fire affinity would be useful if I was part of the Nara clan. I could learn to blow a fireball overhead and stretch a shadow out below, but I'm not. I'm not, and so I'll never learn their shadow tricks. All I can do is light a campfire.

(Even my poor orphan teammate is improving faster than me. Driven perhaps, by his desire to reach jonin.)

(On my best days I just want to be a paper ninja, on my worst, being a missing-nin doesn't seem so terrible at all.)

I think it says something about how paper ninja are viewed that they are called 'ninja' like civilians and children, instead of 'shinobi' like the Sannin. Like real shinobi. Maybe I'm just being hypersensitive though. I am, after all, 'ninja running' through Konoha forest at this very moment, and a civilian sure as hell couldn't do this.

Language, as Asano always reminds me, is important though. And ninja running is barely even considered a ninja skill, genin can do it after all. Even some academy students can.

Now that I think about it, Asano is kinda weird about language. She used to be terrible at grammar. (Though now that I think about it, she got over it really quickly once she was at the academy. Maybe she just did it to be cute?) She is terrible at writing, mostly because he never remembers her kanji, though her hiragana and katakana is pretty good. Actually ignoring her grammer, her writing is pretty awesome. What she's shared of it at least. Maybe she'll drop out the academy and become an author. That would be nice.

The forests always make my thoughts go funny. Or maybe it's the running. The sky is dark now, though it's hard to tell through the thick foliage, and if I hadn't been raised by Ka-san who has always been a firm believer in training early (well, before Kimiko was born she was). When Hideo was a baby they used to walk through the forests…

It's one of my favourite memories of Ka-san. She taught me about the forest and the trees and the life that was hidden there. They hadn't gone very often, maybe every month or so, but it had been peaceful. Even though it meant he had to get up and leave his blanket behind.

That's why he can't be a missing-nin farmers have to wake up early in the morning, and I just don't want to do that. I would probably starve to death. Maybe I could be a prostitute. They work at night. It probably wouldn't be that hard. The thought of it makes me feel dirty though, so I put it aside.

The light breeze brings in the smell of city, and I know I am close to home.

Most of my thoughts are just that, ramblings in my head to distract myself from the long journey and the longing I feel for home and warmth. But some tiny part of it is more. A bitterness, a desire to escape. It the the cold angry part of myself that all people have and I, although smarter than most, can fall victim to it as well.

As the walls of Konoha come into view the dark part of be recedes and I just feel… tired. (An aching deep into my bones, an exhaustion no amount of sleep seems to cure. A feeling of emptiness, like my psyche is cracked and no one has bothered to help me put it back together. Cracked is the best way to put it. Under stress, but not yet broken.)

I don't like C-ranks.

Checking into the village is annoying because the chunin at the gate love to make jokes about 'baby genin all alone', but it's fast enough so I don't mind too badly. They say that Nori-sensei wants us to meet at the mission desk tomorrow, early afternoon, so I'll have time to sleep in a bit. That's at least one good thing. I'm not sure who else is back yet, since the gate chunin said it would be better to leave a bit of suspense.

Next weekend the Sakurai family will be moving to a house on the edge of Konoha, the building used to be a large family home. The kind where the whole 'clan' would stay in one building. The Nohara Clan home I think? They died out in the last war, but the building has been empty since then. In part because it needed a good deal of fixing up and in part because most people prefer to be in central Konoha, which is better protected in case of attack.

The Nohara Clan home, soon the be the Sakurai home opens up on the small forest training ground that is rarely used, and Ka-san sent in an application for it to become private property.

The rebuilding was mostly done by Oji-san, Asano, Hideo, and Ka-san since they aren't running missions. (Kimiko 'helped' with the paint apparently, but she's only six, so how much could she really have done?)

I haven't actually spent any time there since it's been patched up since Nori-sensei wants us to be ready for the chunin exams coming in 9 months. We'll have only been genin for 15 months, less than a year and a half at that point.

I'll admit, I'm nervous. It's not that I don't trust in my own skill, but rather, the chunin exams are quite dangerous. Also, I really want to pass. It's not that I don't like Sachi and Bachi, or that I don't like spending time with Koji, but they have very different goals from myself. Sachi wants to be the first Inuzuka ANBU captain who keeps her dog (how she knows she would be the first, I have no idea). Koji wants to be a jonin strong enough to protect everyone (though mostly the orphanage).

I just want a steady job, time to find a romantic partner maybe? I want to be safe, mostly.

"I'm home!" I call, before pausing to realise that it's fully dark outside and everyone might be asleep. I make my way upstairs, peeling my clothes off as I do. I'm hot and sweaty, and the cool April breeze. The weather will be warmer soon, but not quite yet. Hideo bet it would be two weeks, I bet it would be a month. Based on past years it doesn't actually get warm until the start of May.

I don't want to take a shower, so instead I go to the bathroom and use some water from the sink to wash off the worst of it. Asano is giving me a knowing look over her notebook when I enter our room, mostly devoid of worldly objects which already got moved while I was on mission.

"Oji-san's senpai is coming for dinner tomorrow." Asano says when it's clear I'm not going to start a conversation. I grunt, quietly though because Hideo's asleep. I want to be asleep. It's been 23 hours since I've closed my eyes longer than a blink, since our camp got scouted.

I pull on some pajamas and glance at Asano's notebook which contains some wobbly looking seal work.

"You're not going to actually try and use those, are you?" Nori-sensei and the my academy sensei had been clear that imperfect seal work was incredibly dangerous, despite the fact that no one I knew had even tried it.

"Nah, not until they're perfect, I'm not using sealing ink or paper until them." Asano says, dipping her brush into ink again and making a small, and slightly blobby mark.

"Are you sure you should be doing this on your bed?" The bed moves slightly as she leans forward to make more markings, and the ink sloshes slightly in the bottle.

"Nope, it's probably a horrible idea," Asano agrees, "but it's much more comfortable than the floor."

"It won't be when your bed is covered in ink." I remind her. I don't particularly care either way, but she'll be in a lot of trouble if it does happen, which could be annoying for me if Ka-san's in a bad mood.

"Eh, yeah. But then I'll just sleep in your bed." I start to make a sound of protest. "You're not here most nights anyway."

"And what if I am here?" Also she'll probably have ink all over her. Asano is not a messy person in most things, but if she's used ink in the last week, you can tell because she's covered in it.

"Then I'll share with you?" Asano says, scratching her cheek with any inky finger that rather proves my point.

"You've got ink on your face."

"I figured."

It's calm as I crawl into bed, but despite exhaustion my brain whirls in cowardly thoughts of fear and betrayal.

"Asano?"

"Yep?"

"Why are you learning sealing?"

"Well it's a long story, but mostly because the chakra control for it is very easy. And at this point in time I think I'll need to focus on genjutsu, since I can't really become a master at ninjutsu without elemental transformations. I'm not really strong enough at this point to focus on taijutsu, and I'd prefer to avoid being a close contact combatant. Therefore genjutsu, and some point of support, which made me think of sealing."

"That is… very well thought out." Better than I expected for sure. (Better planned out than I had been at her age.)

"Also, I like stuff where if you do the right thing, then the right thing happens. Sakura's looking into a book about biology and experimentation - I should show it to you another time, it's really cool - and it says that sometimes even if you do everything right, the experiment or medical procedure will still fail. And I- I don't think I could do that," Asano whispers. I open an eye to glance at her, sitting stiffly with all thoughts of sealing abandoned as whatever she's thinking about consumes her.

"Isn't sealing really expensive?"

"Well…" Asano draws out, reluctant to say such a thing for a moment before she relents, "yeah. It's pretty expensive. That's why I'm using normal paper and ink right now. The real stuff is super expensive." Asano puts her brush into her ink pot and leaves it there are she blows gently on the wet ink. The smell drifts across the room and I wrinkle my nose slightly.

"Oji-san was clear that I'll probably never be able to use elemental chakra, not unless my entire chakra network was healed one channel at a time. And the only medic skilled enough to maybe do it is the Slug Sannin."

"The one who retired and left Konoha before we were born?" I ask, thinking on how coincidence is a terribly cruel master.

"That's the one." Asano agrees, and it feels like she agrees with my thoughts as much as my words. My little sister, crippled by luck.

"The last living Senju?" I ask, because I want to be sure. There might be multiple Slug Sannin, I've never asked. Oddly enough the stories don't really intersect. She is either the Slug Sannin or Tsunade-hime, I've never really heard a story where she asks as both.

"Yep." Asano confirms distractedly, trying to get a particularly stubborn spot to dry.

"You know she's our Great Aunt or something like that right?" I say, trying to close my eyes so that I can go to sleep. It seems to be a losing battle. I ask despite fact that I'm pretty sure she knows, since Ka-san and Tou-san were very good at talking about how the Senju without being clear about our connection (or the effects of our connection) to them. Perhaps to keep us safe, perhaps because they found it awkward to talk about.

"Yep." Asano pulls a tissue from a pocket and dabs the paper, no doubt smearing ink everywhere. Asano is good at many things, but I can already tell that sealing will be an uphill battle more due to her poor handwriting and inking than to her inability to understand what she's doing.

"Do you think she'd come back to heal you?" I ask, curious. I have no particular reason to believe that Asano will know the answer, but maybe Oji-san advised her on it?

"No." Asano replies flatly. For a few silent seconds we both rage at a woman we have not met for her selfishness that could cost my sister her life.

"... Is that why your friend has been looking to medicine?"

"Biology as a whole actually and… I don't think so? Honestly I'm not sure. Maybe." Asano says, shrugging lurchy way that makes her bed shake slightly.

"I'm not sure I'm ready to be a chunin." I admit to the silent room after a while.

"I know, but you'll do a good job anyway." I hear as my brain finally quiets at my confession.

I am not ready.

Notes:

A/N: Alright, so there's a little less than 10,000 words left from NaNoWriMo that I have written. Those chapters will be published each morning. After that I'm going to update every weekend.

Also a warning, this chapter is the start of a shift to darker tone.

Questions:
1) What's a character you really hate reading about?
2) What is your favourite self insert trope?
3) What do you think of Asano trying to learn sealing?

Chapter 38: Kunoichi Class - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

'Kunoichi classes are a whole different world' , Inner points out when Sakura is once more bewildered by her classmates' (and teacher's) behaviour. Sakura couldn't say that there was one single goal behind kunoichi classes. They are taught instruments and decorum and flower arrangements. At the same time they are taught how to gossip and persuade, they make up special signals with each other, and learn the nonverbal language of the Kunoichi.

Asano hates every moment of it. She complains that only girls have to do it! Which she finds problematic because Asano's not sure if she's a girl or not, but also because it's not fair that girls have to spend three extra hours at school a week. Technically , it's not mandatory, but any girls graduating from the academy who didn't attend the kunoichi class are thought of as lazy or otherwise lacking.

Which, while is definitely not fair, Sakura still kind of likes kunoichi classes. For once no one is screaming about Sasuke (usually). Although Sakura does admit to finding him visually attractive she doesn't pretend that his behavior is anything other than rude. The other girls explain away his actions are stoic or manly, and Sakura can kind of see why they say that. Far too many parents spout his praises.

The ratio of boy to girl in normal lessons has started to change rather dramatically. Ten students have dropped out since Sakura started at the academy and seven of them were girls. Their class is currently made up of 35 students, but eventually this number might get low enough that they'll be merged with one of the other terms. (At least that's what Asano's brother told her, so they were both taking it with a grain of salt.)

Sakura likes the feeling of unity in kunoichi class. She knows that if she ever needs it, she can go to any of the 12 girls in her kunoichi class and they will help her. If, for some reason, they aren't available, four of the girls have siblings Sakura would be willing to go to (not counting Asano). Another option would be the older and younger kunoichi classes that they spend two lessons a month with. (In the group a year ahead there's a boy that is in the kunoichi class, which makes Asano happy.)

Kunoichi classes are currently bizarre because they are currently talking about how to pass as civilians… and either Sakura, or the general class have serious misconceptions about civilians.

The civilians that Sakura knows are born and raised in Konoha, and while they might take part in a quiet gossip with the neighbours that also were born and raised in Konoha, they would never talk to strangers. The civilians that Sakura knows barely even talk to immigrants about anything other than the weather. (There are four go to topics for safe conversation in Konoha: the weather, Lady Torii Kiyonobu, food, and the trees.)

The girls (and teacher) in Sakura's class seem to think that civilians are slightly slow, unaware of how privileged they are, and generally spend all day gossiping. The civilians Sakura knows work harder than any shinobi she's ever met, and that includes her parents. In part because despite working for up to 16 hours a day, they still make an effort to spend time with their families, which takes effort.

"Uuuughh, kill me now," Asano murmurs from where her head his resting on the kotatsu*. It's getting a bit too warm to have the heater on, but Asano insists that her feet are cold, and Sakura doesn't mind all that much either (open toed sandals, while very popular, are not particularly good for conserving heat).

"Civilian women tend to wear impractical, and brightly coloured clothing…" Absolutely bizarre .

"Sakura," Asano says, nudging Sakura's side without looking up. "Remind me not to do an all nighter on sealing when I have a full day coming up." Sakura ignores her, mostly because they both know that's never going to happen. "My head hurts," Asano moans, finally (and unfortunately) drawing their sensei's attention.

"Sakurai-chan, am I disturbing your rest?" Sakura giggles silently and without moving (okay, so it's Inner who's giggling, but it's basically the same thing) as she watches Asano's respect for authority clash with her need to make a smart-ass comment.

"...No ma'am. You're not disturbing me very much at all, if you could lower your voice a little though…" Asano trains off, still having not raised her head.

"Sit up, Sakurai-chan." Sensei says, voice going hard, away from her usual fluttery voice. Sakura is abruptly reminded that their sensei is, as a matter of fact, a shinobi. That no matter how often she pretends to swoon over the thought of the Hokage's son, Asuma, she is still a battle hardened warrior who would kill them. She is reminded why infiltration skills are so important, because Sakura had completely forgotten these, rather key, points.

Sakura watches as Asano's back heaves in a sigh before she sits up.

Asano's face, while mostly normal, has an inky mustache on her top lip, and another smaller stain on her cheek. Both Inner and Sakura giggle, along with much of the class.

"What happened to your face, Sakurai-chan?" Sensei doesn't look so upset anymore, but if she's laughing it's all happening on the inside.

"Well…" Asano draws out, grinning even as her face flushes in embarrassment, "you see… it turns out if you have ink on your hands… and then you go like this," Asano lifts her left hand to rub her upper lip contemplatively with her thumb on one side and her fore and middle finger on the other, "then you end up with a pretty rockin' mustache." (' Rockin?' Inner echoes in confusion. It sounds like a good thing… but it can be hard to tell with Asano sometimes. She just makes up words sometimes. Inner shrugs at another of Asano's many quirks.)

Sensei stares at Asano for a long moment before pulling a small bottle out of one of her huge sleeves and places it on the table in front of them.

"Go to the bathroom and use this to remove the marks. In the future, ink can be removed with jam, baby oil, or disinfectant." Sensei gives Asano a sharp nod, and Asano leaves the room to get the humourous stain off. It's too bad, apparently Asano's Uncle has a friend coming over and it would've been fun to see their reaction.

Notes:

A/N:
*a kotatsu is a low wooden framed table that has a blanket around the edges, and usual a heat source below the table.

1) How do you think civilians in Konoha differ from civilians in your local area and why?

2) What do you think the biggest advantage of taking part in kunoichi class is?

3) How do you feel about my portrayal of Inner Sakura so far?

user TheOne320 has recced Clockwork and a Teacup by Artsome. The work is 200k and a work in progress about a self insert into Sakura Haruno. This work can be found

here

or here: s/8684118/1/Clockwork-and-a-teacup

Chapter 39: Books - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

After kunoichi lessons, Asano invites Sakura home for dinner, which is pretty common these days. Asano's mom has finally started to warm up to Sakura after her disastrous comments during their first meeting, and firmly believes that it is necessary to eat dinner with others as often as possible. (Sakura is starting to get the feeling that Asano's mom dislikes the way her parents are never home… But Sakura might just be imagining things, Asano's mom is hard to understand.)

The walk back from the academy is quiet, and short (but only until this weekend). Asano is humming something under her breath, a repetitive beating song that Sakura doesn't recognise. Asano probably made it up, despite having less than zero musical talent she quite enjoyed it. (Even their Sensei from kunoichi class gave up on Asano having any marketable musical skill, which is saying something serious. Sensei even ranked the deaf student two years above as a better musician.)

"Maybe you could move in with us. Then we could have a sleepover every night." Asano suggested as they entered the house. Sakura avoided the newly placed trap by the door that Asano didn't even notice.

"WE'RE HOME!" Sakura calls on their behalf before replying to Asano. "No. We would murder each other."

"Well… I would murder you since I am willing to stay up all night and you can't even stay awake past midnight."

"Probably," Sakura agreed at they climbed the stairs, "but only if you didn't bother me so much that I murdered you while we were awake. I'm better at hand to hand than you are after all."

"And you're faster too, damn," Asano pouted. The room was mostly bare, only a small pile of clothes by each bed, and a large bag by the door with the dirty clothes that would (hopefully) be washed at Asano's new house. Sakura hadn't seen it yet since Asano's dad said it was bad luck for non-family members to see a house before they moved in.

As per usual they both smushed onto Asano's (rather tiny) bed and each pulled out their book of choice. Asano's was the best book detailing sealing that they could find in the entire available library area (neither of them were willing to try to sneak into even the genin section of the library). They both agreed that the book was probably misplaced and should be in the upper library sections (which were ironically named since at least one of the areas was under ground). Neither of them mentioned it the chunin who checked the book out for her though.

Sakura's book was a handwritten journal of a mysterious background about human biology. Sakura had grabbed it at first because it looked like a medical book, but it was so much better than that. She'd also checked out four books about medicine so that the chunin on duty would over look it a little more, since she was about 65% sure it wasn't actually a library book. Inside was some… admittedly creepy stuff (Sakura did not want to meet the author) but most of it was just really interesting.

It explained how elemental natures were genetic (and theories on how they could be changed) which was incredibly relevant to Asano. Why the Hyuuga and Uchiha couldn't intermarry (when the Uchiha were alive,) with detailed drawn examples - gross! As well as why it was dangerous for academy level students to wear weights (their chakra wasn't fully formed enough to prevent a stunted growth).

Asano was just reading and trying to decypher the seals today since actually practicing was, as earlier noted, messy. She had pulled out her little notebook, and was using a pencil to mark down potential interpretations. She also had a representation of a new seal that she was dissecting, all in pencil. (It was cleaner, cheaper, and Asano was a lot better at it. It was too bad the academy only accepted work written with ink and brushes since it improved dexterity.) (Exceptions were made for orphans with limited funds, which upon first glance seemed like a good idea to Sakura, and upon second glance seemed to mean they cared less if the orphans had less dexterity and died because of it.) (Sakura is not wrong.)

"Welcome home," Asano's Uncle says from the doorway, in that stilted, awkward way of his. Sakura has nothing against Asano's Uncle (who according to Asano, isn't even her actual uncle. He's really an ANBU operative who's there to train Hideo and make sure he doesn't become a missing-nin. According to Asano at least, and although it seems unlikely to Sakura, she trusts her friend. Asano's life is pretty strange, to be honest.) Asano jumps because she didn't hear him enter and was off in her own world. "What are you working on?"

"I'm trying to decypher Taro's tracking seal," Asano answers immediately, and Sakura wonders how much Asano's Uncle knows about their independent work. "It's really interesting, but really hard. There's almost nothing in the library about sealing!" Asano exaggerates her voice and Sakura recognises the way that Asano never says the full truth to her Uncle. She also wonders who else would recognise such a thing since she knows that Asano is… a less than honest person in general.

"For good reason," Asano's Uncle warns, "sealing is incredibly dangerous if it goes wrong." Asano nods with a serious look on her face. Sakura turns back to her book, wishing that she'd brought one of the more boring (but more acceptable) medical books with her as well.

"Do you have any sealing books that could help?" Asano asks, and without glancing over Sakura knows that Asano is making that face. It would be cute on a four year old, but on Asano's nine year old face it just looks awkward (to Sakura at least, it still works worryingly well on Asano's dad though).

" I don't…" Asano's uncle says slowly, "but you can ask my senpai. Just remember not to be too rude to him, otherwise he'll…" Asano's uncle trails off and when Sakura glances at him he has a horrified look on his face, and is looking towards Asano's window. Then the cool breeze reaches her and Sakura turns to the window. And gawks.

Crouched in the window frame of Asano's room is a shinobi she's never seen before.

A shock of gravity defying greyish white hair sticks up, and a Konoha headband covers one eye. His nose down is covered by a dark blue or black mask (he's silhouetted in a way that makes it impossible to tell). (Theoretically the mask could be dark purple too, but Sakura thinks that would be unlikely.) The rest of his outfit is typical chunin wear, and he's holding a bright orange book in one hand. Overall, nothing about him seems particularly dangerous, except for the horror on Asano's uncle's face (a supposed ANBU operative).

"Senpai!" Asano's uncle pleads desperately with a single word.

"Is that what my darling kohai thinks of me?" Sakura can't see his face, but she thinks he might be pouting.

"WHAT'S YOUR NAME?" Asano shouts, rolling off the bed in her excitement. A quietly muttered, "ow." rises from the edge of the bed.

"You can call me Kakashi."

"HELLO KAKASHI-SENPAI!" After a moment Sakura can hear the increasingly loud mutters of, "Oji-san's senpai? Senpai squared? Kashi-pai?"

"My," the shinobi says, stepping into the room, "what an… enthusiastic niece you have." Sakura glances at Asano's uncle, who has a strange look on his face.

"THERE HAD BETTER NOT A SHINOBI SNEAKING INTO MY CHILDREN'S BEDROOM!" Asano's mom shouts, despite the distance it sounds threatening, and Asano's uncle's senpai quavered for a moment before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Half a second later there's a knock on the door downstairs.

Sakura giggles and Inner agrees. She's still not convinced on this new shinobi, but he's a little funny at least.

Asano sits up and sticks out an arm that her Uncle grabs to pull her up. She makes a dramatic showing of dusting herself off and her Uncle watches with an amused and mock judgmental look on his rather blank face. (For the first four months she knew him she thought he never made facial expressions, she's since learned that most of his are just a little bit more discrete.)

"We'd best go downstairs and meet our guest," Asano says in a pompous voice before running towards the stairs and slipping slightly on the hardwood floors. Sakura smiles at her goofy antics.

"I'll be down in a minute," Sakura assures Yohei when he sends her a questioning look, "I need to use the toilet." It's true, but also not the truth . (When did Sakura get so used to this? To these half lies?) She's pretty sure Asano's uncle knows she's not telling the whole truth, but is too polite to call her on it, which she appreciates.

Once he's gone she packs up her and Asano's books, and tucks them into a corner. Although they found them both in the correct section, and checked them out the official library chunin (who they both agree is probably a clone), there is an agreement that they probably shouldn't be found with these books.

Sealing is considered a chunin rank skill once it's user can do more than write explosion tags (which are pretty easy to make according to Asano, who hasn't actually made a single tag, because sealing will often default to explosion if you mess up). There is nothing so simple about Sakura's book. There is also nothing blatantly wrong with it. Mostly just a lingering feeling of uneasy when people see her reading it, and the recognition that experimenting on human beings is wrong, and who ever wrote the book knew a lot about it. (Sakura and Inner take turns arguing that they should put it back, destroy it, give it to Iruka-sensei. They both know they will never do that.)

When Sakura arrives downstairs Taro and Hideo are sitting on the couch and Asano is holding up her notebook to ask the shinobi called Kakashi about sealing. He doesn't even look like he's listening, but Asano doesn't seem bothered by it. (Inner echoes Asano's words from weeks ago, ' sometimes the best way to hide something is to shove it into people's faces.' ) (Sakura feels oddly bitter sometimes, wondering how much Asano hides from her. It's silly though, since Sakura is pretty sure Asano tells her more than anyone else.)

(In four months, while laying on the bank of the river, Asano will say, 'I'm only as clever as I am because this is my second life,' and Sakura will laugh. Sakura will barely think about the statement, because the conversation up to that point makes it clear that she is joking. It will be years before Sakura remembers that conversation, remembers today, will think of all the strange hiding places Asano finds, and will think that Asano has always known how to hide secrets. In plain sight.)

Sakura can hear voices from the kitchen, but no actual words. There is a tension in the room though, a humming on her skin that she cannot explain. A ripple echos from the kitchen and Asano's head will snap towards the kitchen door. Sakura will glance over and accidentally notice the way Kakashi's gaze sharpens. (But maybe she imagined it, shinobi are hard to read.)

"Why is Ka-san using chakra on Oji-san?" Asano says, head cocking like Akamaru before he starts chasing something. Kakashi doesn't answer, busy reading his book.

"How can you tell it was Ka-san who used chakra instead Oji-san?" Taro asks from where he's laying, Hideo is poking him in the ribs and being ignored.

"Would you use chakra on Ka-san in her own kitchen? I'm not sure even the Hokage would do that…" Asano pauses, and turns to Taro, "actually, I'm sure the Hokage wouldn't. He's too smart for that." Taro looks contemplative at that, before shrugging and nodding slightly, returning to the book in his hand. Sakura thinks about seeing what it says, Taro is older and smarter than she is (smarter than she will ever be, it sometimes feels. At least when he makes intelligent responses that completely shut down her ideas).

"Your mother is Yoko Iryoku, correct?" Kakashi asks lightly, not even glancing up from his book. (Inner sends him an annoyed look, but Sakura is too polite to do so.)

"Ahh…" Asano pauses, "I'm not sure what her last name is-"

"It's Iryoku." Hideo says, his head on his brother's stomach. Taro and Asano both pause for a moment, tilt their heads, and in eerie unison (they weren't even looking at each other - Taro hadn't even stopped reading!) nod.

After a moment Asano gave up on Kakashi helping her with her sealing and joined Sakura to talk. They sat the top of the stairs and as Asano tried (and failed) to think of a point of conversation they were willing to have overheard, Asano watched her brothers intently.

"Where's Kimiko?" Sakura asks, having done a double take when she realised Asano's 'favourite little sister in all of this dimension' wasn't present.

"She's over at her friend's house."

"...She has friends?" Sakura asks, slightly awkward about how much she doubted this. Whenever she came over Kimiko was home, always. She was never quite clear on what Kimiko did all the time, but as far as Sakura could tell she never left the house.

"That was my response!" Asano turns to Sakura, grins and says, "I'm joking. Kimiko enjoys playing sports with a civilian group, she made some friends there. I think her two best friends are civilians, but she also hangs out with an Aburame and an Akimichi."

"Alright, come and eat!" Asano's mom calls from the kitchen. It's pretty early to have dinner, but no one seems to mind.

Even with Asano's dad gone (presumably on a mission), the kitchen is a tight squeeze with all of them there. The food is all resting on the kitchen counter since there's no space on the table, and once they're seated everyone's legs are touching each others. Sakura is sitting between Asano and Hideo, which is just about the best possible arrangement. Furthest away from her is Taro and Asano's uncle, which also suits her pretty well.

Asano, who seemed to excited to meet Kakashi, is now entirely focused on eating, and completely ignoring the man, who is still reading his little orange book. Every time Sakura glances over, food has disappeared.

After a few minutes of… admittedly awkward conversation, there is a poof, and Kakashi is gone. (There are a limited number of times you can apologise for the trouble you caused when they saved you from bullies by accident. Hideo hasn't told anyone else, as far a Sakura knows, that he hadn't meant to grow a tree. He had wanted to protect her, and that just happened to take the form of a tree rising out of the ground and carrying her to the sky.)

The rest of the meal carries on as normal, although Asano's uncle is usually to busy to join them. Watching him slightly over dinner (he has an odd senpai), Sakura notices how mechanically he eats, and Inner adds a tally to her mental chalkboard under 'ANBU'. The 'Non-ANBU' column is pretty weak to be honest.

Sakura looks around, feeling kind of tired from her day, and the stress of a strange shinobi coming in the window. A hand touches hers, cooling her warm skin, Asano sends her a smile.

Once the table is clear it's time for Asano to walk her home, since Sakura's not allowed to know about the Secret Mokuton Lessons and Sakura is reminded that Asano is at least (more) honest with her.

What a strange day .

Notes:

A/N:
So I may have messed some future plot up a bit by introducing Kakashi too early, but that's a problem for future Mysana.

1) Did Kakashi feel in character?
2) Was this chapter able to make you laugh at all? (If so/not why?)
3) Would you enjoy reading more snippets with Kakashi in them?

Today's fic rec is history has its eyes on you by tasalmalin Which can be found:

here

or here: /series/442369

The five part series has a darker take on time travel fics, it's Kakashi-centric, and has a happy ending. In totally it reaches just short of 130k with a strong focus on Kakashi and Minato, it is also COMPLETE (what a gem!)

Chapter 40: Moving Day - Taro

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Over the weekend, I have permission from Nori-sensei to miss training for the move, which I appreciate for a wide number of reasons. Largely because sleeping in is heavenly, and neither Asano nor Hideo got time off school, so I get to relish in their jealously. I think of copying Asano's "evil person laugh" where she taps her finger tips together and "cackles" by saying the sound "Mwah ha ha haha!" but it seems a bit ridiculous, so I made sure no one is looking when I do it.

It's quite funny how Nori-sensei, and high level shinobi in general have a warped perception of difficulty.

Running from Water Country to Fire Country? Annoying, but anyone can do it (most don't bother though). Having dinner with a family? Impossible(ly awkward). Fighting a B-rank missing-nin who's already killed dozens of other shinobi? Just in a day's work - although you may need a medic to heal your scrap later. Moving house? You'd best take the week of. Maybe the month?

That said, I am definitely going to take advantage.

The morning of the first moving day is a bit frantic. Ka-san sent Oji-san ahead since he didn't own very much stuff, and Tou-san tried to leave with him, giggling all the while. Ka-san was running the operation, and honestly she looked super stressed, and Tou-san wasn't exactly helping. I felt bad for Ka-san.

Then she came for me though, and I didn't feel very bad at all. There wasn't actually much left at our current house, mostly just the last set of clothes and whatnot. Most of the work would be done actually at the house, unpacking boxes and all that fun stuff.

Luckily for me, and unfortunately for my parents wallets, they had agreed that us kids needed new beds. What with my toes almost sticking out of mine at 13. None of us were ridiculously tall, but the beds here were still child size (three adult size beds would not fit in our shared room).

Most of the packing and unpacking was rather boring, but on Sunday night, Ka-san had us all invite the people we spent time with over.

Sachi, Bachi, and Koji all came, but Nori-sensei said he had "dishes to clean" and couldn't make it. When I relayed this to Ka-san she nodded with an amused (and worryingly, slightly contemplative) look on her face.

It turned out that somehow, my team and my family had managed to avoid meeting each other until this point. Which seemed bizarre to me considering I spent 50% of my time with each of them.

It was really quite awkward for the first few minutes, since the three of us (and Bachi) were all graduated from the academy and onto funner (Sachi's point of view), more interesting (Koji's), and scarier things. Then Bachi got over the butterfly that had escaped and decided to meet the new people.

I learned two very important things. The first is that Hideo is slightly afraid of dogs. The second is that Asano loves them. Bachi's still pretty small now, so Hideo mostly just sat there, frozen, while Bachi sniffed him. Asano on the other hand, give him a tummy rub and is probably Bachi's number one non-Inuzuka person.

Thankfully, Koji was pretty good with kids, and Kimiko adored all the attention she was getting from someone new. (It turns out Kimiko enjoys playing sports? When did that happen?) Koji is the smallest of the three of us (not including Bachi), and was only a smidge taller than Hideo, something Hideo took great pride in.

Asano was jealous of Koji's hair, which was… strange to say the least. Koji had (according to Asano) 'brown hair with a hidden reddish tint'. Asano apparently was unhappy with her 'plain brown' hair in comparison to Koji and Kimiko's reddish brown locks. (Yes, everyone is wondering where Kimiko got the red hair colour that showed in direct sunlight.)

This jealousy was rather odd, considering Asano has never cared for how she looked. Like. Not even a little. Her hair (until recently) was cropped short in the same style that Hideo and myself wear (with slight variation between the three of us). Her clothes… well… She wears Hideo's when she can't find any of her own that are clean.

Perhaps the best way to summarise it was that she doesn't even bother looking in the mirror some days which is how she ended up going to the Academy with ink all over her face. Multiple times.

You know, I had thought that Asano was trying to be sneaky with her sealing, considering that if Ka-san realised what was going on Asano could lose her right to fresh air. (In a fight between Asano and Ka-san, Asano wouldn't stand a chance . Even if she tried to run.)

Ka-san knows sealing basics and very much reminded Hideo and myself (and I assume Asano and Kimiko) that sealing was more dangerous than working with poisons. Sealing was more dangerous than falling into a pool of water when you can't swim. Sealing is dangerous because you can't tell where exactly the danger is going to come from.

I had thought that Asano was trying to hide it. It turned out she didn't even need to. As far as I can tell, besides her asking the masked shinobi from the other day for help, no one had even realised she was doing it. Despite the ink on her face .

As I let my thoughts wander, Sachi and Hideo started to bond in the form of chasing after each other and hitting one another with sticks. Good fun that. (Luckily Hideo didn't start turning the sticks into trees or anything stupid like that, though I wouldn't put it past him anymore.) Kimiko eventually joined in the fun, though Hideo and Sachi let get in a couple of hits since she hadn't even started at the academy.

Asano is explaining to Koji what sealing is, using an explosion tag as an example. She points out how the curve of the 'Rei' symbol means one thing and not another. (I hear her words but I do my best to block them out. Another thing that makes her special. That makes me redundant.)

"So if you push down too hard the lines will come out too thickly which can cause the sealing to require excessive amounts of chakra, and if you make it too thick the lines start to bleed into each other when you charge it. If you ever see a seal do that, run ."

Koji watches, rapt at attention and I want to warn him - remind him, sealing is expensive. Koji's every ryo goes into his apartment which he shares with another genin, that and food apparently. He can't afford sealing equipment. (I can, I could buy him some. It would only benefit me, in the end, if he has more strengths. He could pay me back?)

Asano's friend was able to come around after a while, causing them both to disappear, presumably into the house.

Eventually we had dinner, during which some interesting points of conversation were brought up. Namely Sachi asked Ka-san how she felt about Asano being in the same class as a boy called "Naruto". Apparently her family had been less than thrilled when one of the clan head's children, Kiba, ended up in the same class as him.

Who this "Naruto" is, and why he is so dangerous, I have no idea.

Tou-san told Asano to try to avoid him, apparently his chakra might damage Asano's channels? Or something? They weren't very clear on the specifics. Asano looked rather annoyed by the whole thing, and her friend seemed mostly curious and surprised by the reaction.

(Later Asano and her friend explained that Naruto was an idiot, but not dangerous. Loud, but not scary. Ambitious, but weak, according to Asano's friend. Asano seemed to believe he would get stronger eventually. They agreed that there was no reason to be afraid of him though.)

I like Asano's friend slightly more than I expected. She's clever, not like Asano, and not like myself, but when she can work up the courage her comments are amusing (even if she didn't mean them to be). Apparently she's learning biology, but would rather focus on taijutsu than being a medic-nin.

Asano and her friend laugh, sharing that apparently Asano pulled them both into running, and it's only been three days but Sakura is enjoying it way more.

"You've always liked punching me when you think I'm being an idiot!" Asano laughs, Asano's friend punches her in the arm and they both laugh some more. I wonder, briefly, what it would be like to have friend like that. It seems like a lot of work, but I can see, perhaps, why people might enjoy it. (If I was prone to metaphors I might say that Asano's smile lights up the room, and her laughter makes my chest warm. Luckily, I am not prone to such fits of imagination.)

"You started it!" Asano's friend insists, pushing Asano onto her side before laying on top of each other. Pink hair mixes with brown and Hideo pokes me, only to smile when I glance at him. What is he going on about?

Extra - Choji's POV:

"Why are you staring at me?" Shikamaru asked, looking slightly disturbed when he looked away from the sky. Choji flushed slightly. He hadn't meant to stare. He was just. Watching intently. For reasons.

"Why don't you ask Asano on a date or something?" He finally asked. It'd been bugging him since he'd had ice cream with her and Sakura. "She's really nice." Choji adds, in case Shikamaru is worried about Asano being mean about it.

"A date?! Asano?!" Shikamaru would've spit out his food if there had been any in his mouth. (He really was too thin.)

"Well yeah. I'm not stupid," Choji said, a little hurt Shikamaru thought he hadn't noticed. "You stare at her all the time, and pay attention when she talks. She's probably the only person you know the name of."

"I know other people's names," Shikamaru denied rather unconvincingly. "And I don't have a crush on Asano. She's creepy."

"Creepy?" Choji echoed. Asano wasn't creepy . A little strange, yeah, but in an inoffensive and certainly not creepy way. (Making up her own slang terms wasn't normal . But it wasn't that strange.)

"Yes. Creepy," Shikamaru said seriously, he sat up and put his fingertips together. He paused then moved his hands a bit to readjust. "Her reactions are a fraction late, she purposely fails, and she knows things she shouldn't. It's creepy ."

Choji thought about it for a minute, yeah maybe she took a second too long to laugh at jokes and stuff, but she just thought before she acted. She also mentioned that she got worried over tests and messed up on things she knew. As far as Choji could tell, Shikamaru knew things he shouldn't, so why couldn't Asano?

"It's not that I don't believe you," Choji said, an earnest look on his face, "it's just that you just gave the lamest excuse for a crush that I've ever heard!" He broke into a smile while Shikamaru watched him, dumbstruck.

Alright so maybe Shikamaru didn't have a crush on Asano, but the look on his face was hilarious. (Choji was a good friend though, so he wouldn't bring it up… too often.)

Notes:

A/N:
1) Do you have a preference between a lot of updates or a higher quality updates?
2) Does anyone know how to right genuinely good, pure people like Choji? Cause I don't.
3) How realistic did the interpersonal relationships in this chapter feel?

Chapter 41: Birthday - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

On Sakura's birthday, Asano buys her a ribbon, and gives her four books that Asano's mother owned. The books are old, and the inside pages are stiff with time. Sakura loves it.

Her parents are home for once, and together the four of them go to dinner. Her parents choose the restaurant that was Sakura's favourite when she was seven, and hasn't been to since her last birthday. The server gives Asano a sharp look, but there isn't any recognisable emotion behind it.

The fancy lighting leaves long shadows on the wall and Sakura stares at them with the thought that this is a terrible restaurant. The service is fast, but the overly polite manner makes her hesitate and second guess yourself. Asano gives her a sympathetic look before treating the whole thing like it's completely normal. She smiles at the waiter and says thank you, and even though the waiter makes no reply, his face doesn't even twitch, Asano seems smug.

When the food arrives the portions are too small and Sakura is hungry . (Running in the morning takes energy! Going to the academy… okay well that doesn't take much energy at all. But the adventuring that comes after does!)

Sakura's mom asks Asano all sorts of questions, since it's the first time they've met. Sakura's dad has met Asano twice before, but only briefly.

"So, Asano," her mom says, all sugar sweet. It's too late though, Sakura can already tell that Asano hates her, maybe she hated them both before now. Sakura wonders why that makes her feel so… good. It feels like agreement.

Sakura doesn't hate her parents, not yet, but she most certainly does resent them.

Conversation is stilted, and awkward. Too many blank pauses where no one knows what to say to each other. It's clear, to Sakura at least, that her parents want to say something without Asano or herself noticing, but at ten years old (and Asano almost there), they are too sharp eyed.

Asano and Sakura sit on opposite sides of the table, and although Sakura am so thankful she is there, she can tell Asano feels like an outsider. Despite how often her parents are away, they are 's mom seems to want to remind everyone of that, throughout dinner she makes jokes and references to before Sakura was in the academy (before she'd met Asano) when her mom was still on leave. She only returned to full time duty when Sakura joined the academy, claiming that Sakura was a big girl now, although she's been working since Sakura was five. (Even then she would spend days at a time in an empty house, is it any wonder she was so quiet? That her Inner voice is so loud so she didn't go insane in the silence)

After Sakura and Asano finish eating they leave as soon as possible so Sakura's parents can have a drink and pay the bill without them. Asano leads her up to the Hokage Monument and takes her to a specific bench. From which Sakura can see across Konoha, across Fire Country. Down below the sky was already dark, but from here they watch as the last vestiges of light leave the sky.

Notes:

A/N:
I know this is a short chapter, the next one is longer I promise! The next one is the last NaNo chapter so I'll update tomorrow then not again until Saturday.

1) At the end of dramatic chapters should I leave questions? I worry that having questions disrupts the experience.
2) Does Sakura's resentment feel relatable?
3) In your version of Konoha, what does the top of the Hokage monument look like?

Chapter 42: Stars - Taro

Chapter Text

There is no good way to realise you are being pursued, and that all previous attempts to drive them off course have failed. I, of course being a genin, was not actually the one to realise this. Instead it started with Nori-sensei shouting,

" Scatter !"

There was never a time in my life that I thought that I would be unable to think, not before I was dead at least. Unfortunately, I had found that moment.

" Return !"

Nori-sensei's command to return to Konoha independently almost made me trip. What was he thinking? There was a squad of three chunin and a jonin following us and he was the only one who stood a chance. Sachi hadn't even had her first kill yet!

( My kunai is in his throat. His throat. Blood is dripping down my forearm, no doubt staining my shirt. Yielding flesh benea-)

If I don't run, I'll die.

A sort of wild, single minded focus forces it's way through my panic.

Run.

Run.

Run.

My feet are moving before I can figure out which way Konoha is. My team has left already, faster than me, even if I have better stamina. (Bachi can only run for a short while and Koji grew up barely leaving the orphanage. I grew up chasing after Hideo.)

Run.

Run.

Run.

All I need to do is keep moving. Nori-sensei has the scroll so I don't even have to worry about it.

Goal in mind, my thoughts sharpen into icy clarity. The grass flies past me as I rush towards the border to Fire Country, not all that far away (four days walk, five hour run.) The hair on the back of my neck is raised and my heart is pounding and the mud below my feet is anything but silent. I don't have time to learn how to make it quiet. Chakra maybe? If I'm wrong I could hurt myself. It's better to be loud than to break my foot.

I'm not even going that much faster than normal, but my breath burns my throat and my chest is tight and my head is dizzy even as my thoughts fly.

(I don't want to die.)

My thoughts are on nothing but running. On the smell of mud, sweat, and the fish from the market I passed through yesterday. The sound of the mud beneath my feet and the rustle of the grass around me. My thighs burning with painful heat, the sweat dripping down my neck. (I've never been so thankful for my headband in my life, the most useful thing it will ever do is act like a sweatband.)

My breakfast is sour in my mouth. Rust, from where I bit my tongue.

Nori-sensei's commands for running comes to mind, a refinement on the academy instruction.

Number one: focus on consistency.

Run as fast as you can - but only if you can sustain it. I feel my pattern, my breathing, the soreness of my muscles from the fight only a few days past.

Nori-sensei practically beat into our heads: it doesn't matter who arrives first if you're dead on your feet when you arrive. Perhaps not the most… how do you say it… eloquent of sentiments, but an important one nonetheless.

I'm going too quickly.

I slow, reluctantly, I slow ever so slightly. I don't feel better. I don't feel like I can go on longer now, but after some more time running through grass- (How long? How long? How long can you go?) -my breath eases. Not a lot. Not enough to be comfortable. But a little. Maybe. I think.

(Run, run, as fast as you can. Run little piggy, there's nowhere to go. No house can stop me, said the wolf. Not straw, not sticks, not stones.)

My feet ache, three weeks on a mission, yesterday's chase through the border of Earth Country into Grass. It's too much.

(Just give up, the wolf said. Just me eat you, it'll be so much quicker. Easier. I'll make it painless. I promise .)

The sun has moved, the wind has picked up. And not in the right direction either. The chill burns my face. (Some part of me is childishly indignant - it's summer still! September is still summer!) My nose is running, and fearing for my life is even less glamorous than I thought.

Regardless, I preserve.

(You will never catch me, says the first little piggy. And the little piggy runs, and he hides, and he runs again. The fat from his bones drain and all that is left is skin and bone.)

I can see trees in the distance but that means nothing. The trees of Fire Country are so tall they can be seen from some of the cities in Earth Country. (I would know, just a few days ago I stood on a building and Nori-sensei pointed out their tiny dark tips against the horizon.)

My first steps over what I imagine must be the border turn into a stumble as wet grassland shifts into rocky dirt. I trip, and fall, and get back up, I cannot stop.

(What good is avoiding death if you die at your own hand? The wolf asks, looking at the body of the first little piggy. Why not go easy? Go quickly. You've hurt yourself more than you've hurt me, the wolf coaxes.)

I feel vomit rising in my throat, heavy and bitter. I cannot stop.

(Run little piggy as fast as you can, it does you no good, I'll just chew on your bones.)

Reaching the forest edge feels like victory for a second. Then I stumble on tree roots and plants crunch under my feet. (Are they gone? Am I safe?)

It's been hours. At least. (I think, I can't tell, I'm so scared.)

(The second little piggy runs, but stops. The second little pig hides. Hides behind a pack of boar with their thick hide and elongated tusks.)

I jump to the branches above me and stumble again. (I'm so tired.) The smell of mud lingers on my clothes, but the forest smell musty and alive. (It feels safe.)

(Why bother? The wolf asks, circling the pack. I can see YOU .)

I hear the snap of branches, and I didn't make it.

I don't stop.

I don't look behind me.

I run.

(Run. Run. Run.)

Surprise turns to panic and my limbs are numb. My chakra is full to the bursting within me but useless at helping me escape. I can feel it though, rolling like thunder, audible only to myself. Heavy and thick within my chest, easing my breathing just a touch.

My steps are unsteady and Nori-sensei's admonishing face comes to mind.

Number two: focus on your movements.

Sachi described it as 'one step after another, forever'. I focus on my legs, on their reckless movement, I control my arms. One branch after another.

"Oh my fucking Kami." Someone whispers behind me. Too close. Far too close. Faster, faster, faster.

(Run, run, run. Run as fast as you can! The wolf snarls, snapping his jaw at the second little piggy.)

Fire Country's dry summer forests are famous. They famous because they give Fire Country it's name. They are famous because in summer they burn hotter and brighter than alcohol, day and night for weeks.

(Chakra rolling in my chest. I can light a campfire.)

Horse. (Run.)

Serpent. (One more step.)

Ram. (I don't want to be a shinobi.)

Monkey. (I don't want to die.)

Boar. (Ka-san why?)

Horse. (I'd do anything to keep them safe.)

Tiger. (Wouldn't I?)

I turn and blow the largest fireball I can manage into the twigs of the branches behind me. I can see the silhouette of my wolf.

The fire doesn't ignite like I imagined. It doesn't burst into violent flames, although it has started. It starts with a single flame, and it spreads. I don't have time to watch it though.

Again. Horse. Serpent. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger.

This one I blow in an arc in front of me, and I jump through it just as it catches. The smoke is suffocating, but I push for a burst of speed.

I don't have much chakra left. Maybe enough for one more? But what if I get caught?

(I warned you, snarls the wolf, even as the boar attacked. I warned you!)

I can hear a cough behind me, only a branch or two behind, I can't tell. I can't look back.

(Why even bother? The wolf asks, voice like honey now that the second little piggy is no more.)

A sharp pain in my right shoulder throws me off, and I fall . I'm too tired for the heart stopping moment before I grab the branch with my left hand and use it to swing myself forward. I hold my right arm close to my side and pull out the kunai in my shoulder with my other hand. I'll lose more blood, but I can't risk tearing my shoulder muscles.

(Why even bother? The third little piggy says, that cut on your side will kill you. No matter what you do. My brother has won, even if he is dead.)

Whoever is chasing me is faster than I am. They're chunin vest declares them stronger than me too. What can I do? (I don't want to die.)

My lungs ache. My shoulder hurts. I don't want to run anymore .

(He's dead! The wolf screams, enraged by the idea that he might've lost. I ate him!)

My knee hurts and my side is cramping and I can barely plan because the only thought in my head is: this sucks. How mundane. I sound like Asano.

(And soon so will you be, the third little piggy said softly. Because I am the biggest, I am the strongest, and you killed them .)

There is a rage that I have never felt before simmering in my stomach. Pain and fury and exhaustion.

I cannot run anymore.

(And the third little piggy charges at the big bad wolf, the one who out eat it.)

So I don't.

I spin in my step, turning instead of moving ahead. My hands fly to my kunai with I throw with adequate accuracy.

I see my enemy clearly for the first time.

A boy, no more than a year or two older than myself. His mouth twitches in what I recognise to be contempt even as he pants for breath. (I also notice that his clothes are smoking and the edges of his shirt are singed. Pride mixes with my rage and I am grinning .) I am not smiling, I know what I wear on my face is not a smile, it's a snarl.

(Pigs are many things, most of all they are fat. And when the third little piggy runs at the wolf, still fat and slow from his meal of the second little piggy, there is nothing he can do.)

If I don't stop him then I will die. I doesn't matter how much chakra I have if I'm dead. How many explosion seals I have to buy to recover my buildup, as long as I'm alive to buy them.

I don't have much in the way of a plan though, a small thought says, but I- I don't care, I want to cry!

I throw senbon (I've barely practiced with them and not a single one hits it's mark). I throw my shuriken, something I know much better.

My enemy has a kunai in his thigh and two shuriken in his chest. But his hands are moving through seals more quickly than my eye can see. I throw myself to a different tree and start to run into a circle. I cannot beat him face on. (I wish I knew some genjutsu.)

I can't find him anymore though, although I can see where dirt spikes impale my previous position.

What do I do? Sachi is the team tracker, Koji is the one who fights, I'm the one who plans. I can't though. My mind is blank. Like paper. Like the back of a gravestone. (If I die here, I won't even get only, just another name on the memorial stone.)

Tears burn in my eyes as I look around. There's a rustle and I dart after it, after all, my enemy didn't grow up in a forest. I did. I focus on being silent as I move up through the canopy.

My foot tugs on a branch and I barely glance down, only enough to see the silver glint and throw myself forward as senbon fly out of the bushes at me. My hands land on solid wood but my shin hits a second trap and the explosion throws me through the air.

My head snaps forward, and dots of light flicker in my vision (like stars).

I'm not sure there are words to describe the way it feels, to fly through the air and feel my body as it crushed against nothing, only for a second wave to hit. I can feel the ripple as it passes through me.

Oddly, I burp. In a less interesting reaction, I vomit. I watch as it falls through the trees below me feeling blank.

For a moment, I think I'm safe, and then the pain starts to come through. My leg…

Something in my leg hurts, like crushing your fingers in a door but a thousand time worse. When I look down, my head and sight are dizzy but even so, I can see the blood.

(The wolf falls back, falls back as his ribs creak. The third little piggy, now the only piggy throws itself once more, and the wolf's ribs snap. Snapped like the second little piggy's had in his teeth. But the wolf is not done yet. He snaps and snarls even as he bleeds, like a rabid animal. Like a cornered animal.)

My hand is shaking and I wonder how it went so badly so quickly. I touch a gentle fingertip to my thigh and almost scream.

I can feel bone.

My finger rises to my face, bloody, and I stare at it. I watch as my own blood shines on my skin. My right arm is stiff, and the shoulder hurts more than I would prefer.

I limp a step forward and my knee buckles, and I fall forward, my right arm reflexively moving to catch myself again the tree next to me. I don't scream. I whimper. Tears are falling from my eyes and the salt burns my skin.

I can feel my hope drain away. I can't run like this. I can't fight like this. I can barely move.

Out of the corner of my eye-

(The wolf dies, stomach full and ribs broken. The third little piggy is left alone to wonder who won.)

HorseSerpentRamMonkeyBoarHorseTiger

One last deep breath (my back hurts, why does it hurt) and I blow the flame straight at my enemy. The kunai in his hand falls to onto the wood below, burning red hot. I watch, as the flames engulf him and I can hear as his skin crackles. I can smell his skin burning.

(Asano always did tell the creepiest stories.)

I can see the sky through the trees. I can see the stars.

Chapter 43: Part 2 - That Which Comes After - Shoichi

Notes:

Thank you to yaodai and Ransworn, for your comments. Yaodai, thank you for commenting on each chapter, it feels awesome to find those in my inbox. Ransworn, thank you for your constructive criticism, it's a great help in improving as a writer!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The first sign that the common people saw was smoke, rising from some far of inferno. The ash tinted the sky orange and the air had a heavy feel it it. Many an embarrassed gentleman brushed dandruff off his shoulder only to realise that it was falling from the sky like snowflakes.

Konoha, was much further than the villages that first saw the flames, but all the same they could see the plumes of smoke painting the sky. At first, it was ignored (after checking to make sure there was, in fact, no invasion in process). Fires in Fire Country were not exactly unheard of, and usually it would be allowed to burn for a day or two unless it posed some sort of risk.

Half an hour later 14 squads of older chunin were called to start on the fire fighting process. (Firefighting had killed far too many new shinobi before it was agreed to leave it to those with my experience.)

Fires were good and well, but this one burned far too closely to Grass Country and if it spread it could very well destroy all of Grass - small place it was. It probably wouldn't be good for international relations to accidentally burn a neighboring Country to dirt and ashes. Especially not one as pitiful as Grass. (Grass has never really recovered from the Third Shinobi war when it stood between Earth and Fire.)

Shoichi was among the force sent out. As a rather generic chunin he was, of course, only skilled at using his own inborn element, fire. Luckily, fighting fire with fire is actually a thing, and although it was a rather delicate thing, Shoichi has a fair amount of practice.

One had to careful with chakra fire of course, it burned hotter, and faster, and if it found fuel, longer than natural flames. Even chunin stayed in their squad for the gruelling fight. Over the course of a week more than two hundred chunin took shifts fighting the inferno that would not die. Smoke inhalation is a dangerous thing, but it was also how the cause of the fire was found. Trace amounts of chakra in the smoke suggested that the fire was originally from a jutsu.

That's when Shoichi got called to meet with the Hokage. Again.

There is a certain sort of resigned dread that came with knowing that despite your best attempts, your children would never be discretely average.

"Sao-taichou?"

"Return to Konoha Sakurai-san, the Hokage has called for you."

"Hai, Taichou."

So Shoichi is ran home, away from the ravenous fire, wondering briefly who would start such a thing. Was it an accident? Stupidity? An attempt at sabotage? He knew that Taro was on a mission right now in Earth country that had run a little over time but he should be home by now unless his team was delayed even further.

Kimiko and Asano were looking happier recently, they seemed to enjoy the new house, although Shoichi felt like he had barely spent any time in it at all. Yoko liked being able to get around the house better, since most of it was on a single floor. Taro liked it because he enjoyed stargazing which was easier, and Hideo was trying to build a house in a tree using mokuton with Yohei's assistance and Asano's 'emotional support'.

Konoha came into view and Shoichi smiled at the colourful city that he loved so much. He didn't always like the sacrificial nature that shinobi were encouraged to adopt, and he didn't like how much power the clans had. He was always a touch bitter about the mirror image life that his older half brother would live. Overall though, he didn't regret it. He loved Konoha.

"I was called to see the Hokage?" Shoichi says, more nervous than he'd prefer when he speaks to the secretary. The pinch in his gut gets worse at the pitying look he receives.

"Please wait here for a minute, the Hokage will be ready in a moment."

"Of course," Shoichi sits carefully into the nearby chair, enjoying the relief on his aching legs. It's not worth the time cost to return to Konoha when off duty while firefighting, so there's a Konoha camp a few kilometers away from the fire which makes for a rather miserable week. Even with that space between the bed rolls and the fire everything stinks of smoke, and of course the beds are never as warm or as comfortable as the one he shares with Yoko (even when she sticks her cold feet on his leg).

Yoko rolls in the door and he sends her another incredulous look. He knows there are a whole flight of stairs outside the door, yet she never comes in looking ruffled or annoyed by what can no doubt be an inconvenience.

It's probably not even worth asking though, Yoko enjoys having her secrets. (So many secrets, a part of Shoichi says. The part of him that loved Yoshiko's honest nature more than anything else. A part of Shoichi that has never let go of the way Yoko chose him for his connection to the Naras, and not for himself.) Shoichi pushes those thoughts away and sends her an indulgent smile.

"What are you smiling about today? I thought you'd be grouchy at not having the chance to wash for a week." Yoko asked, moving a chair so she can sit next to him. He moves a hand to rest on hers and she rolls her eyes, always amused and annoyed by his want to touch her in public. (Public displays of affection, as Asano lovingly calls it.)

"But I get to see my lovely wife again, the rest of my squad won't get to see their's again for another week before we get relieved."

"Oh," Yoko raises an eyebrow, "so you're glad to be missing out on work." Shoichi has always been something of a slacker, and Yoko has… well… not. They accept each other's differences though.

"Always," Shoichi promises vehemently and Yoko shakes her head in (mostly) mock disgust.

Someone Shoichi doesn't recognise leaves the Hokage's office, and once they've left the room the secretary turns to them and nods for them to enter.

The feeling in the Hokage's office is… worrying it say the least. The Hokage looks tired. It doesn't decrease his feeling of power at all, but he looks weary in a way Shoichi has learned to fear.

"Noritaka Hoga has informed me that your son, Taro Sakurai, is missing in action," the Hokage says as soon as Shoichi has sat down.

There are hardly words for the feeling that makes Shoichi freeze. The terror looming just over his head. The fear in his stomach (just behind the sacral chakra gate, fiery chakra burning cold). The grief that isn't even assured causing a lump in his throat.

"On the most recent mission in Earth Country, Team Hoga faced Iwa nin intent on recapturing the scroll they were sent to retrieve. The mission was labeled as a C-rank only because of the fact it was outside of Konoha, there wasn't supposed to be any defense at all as the scroll was only supposed to contain some family heirlooms."

Shoichi does not sob, he does not cry. He stares into the middle difference at the thought that his son has died because of some useless heirlooms. Shinobi don't cry. (Not in public at least, not where anyone can see.)

"Upon realising they were being pursued, Hoga-san ordered his team to scatter and return to Konoha, as they had practiced. Hoga-san carried the scroll in the hope that the squad following them - made up of three chunin and a jonin - would all follow him. In case of emergency each of the genin had a seal they would use to call for help."

Shoichi knew the seal; Asano had been so interested in how it worked, why the point on the master map would still show their positions if the seal was destroyed. She had been so disappointed when Taro told her (very clearly) that she couldn't activate it to test it.

"Their pursuers, three chunin and a jonin leader, separated and chased after each of them separately. One of his teammates, Koji, made it to Konoha without interruption. His other teammate, Sachi Inuzuka, did not. She activated her seal and was rescued by Hoga-san. Unfortunately because your son didn't activate his seal, something he was clearly instructed to do if he needed help, we don't know where he is. By the time Hoga-san attempted to call the seal in reverse, the seal had already been destroyed."

Yoko doesn't stiffen, not like most people do, she's too well trained to do that. In fact if asked to pinpoint how he knew she was upset, he wouldn't be able to give you any words. He just… knew?

"Herein lies the problem. Without a body, and without a call for help, your son cannot be declared killed or missing in action. Without his presence, or a declaration of death, he can only be marked as away without leave. If his body, or his presence cannot be found within thirty days, and no signs of capture are shown, Taro Sakurai will be marked as a missing-nin."

Shoichi didn't gasp, his jaw didn't drop. (He wasn't a civilian, after all.) He did, although he'll deny it, stare at the Hokage in shock. His son was missing, most likely dead, having been chased down by a shinobi of superior skill and experience. His son had given his life for Konoha, and he would be marked a traitor for it.

The Hokage, looking solemn, pulling out a gray scroll and handed it across the table.

"If your son is dead, and after seven years no sign of him is found then he kill be marked down as killed in the line of duty, and his name will be added to the memorial stone."

Shoichi opened the scroll, and found it containing a formal declaration of Taro Sakurai as away without leave, and a demand that he present himself for reprimanding by Konoha government.

"As the previous legal guardians of Taro before his graduation you will be asked to take part in a small interrogation. Unless there is reason to suspect that your son may have defected then your other children will not need to get involved." The Hokage was quiet for a moment before his statue soften and he leaned slightly forward.

"Regardless of what happened, I am sincerely sorry for your son's disappearance. Although I know that this can, in no way reduce your pain, I want you to be aware that Hoga-san will be under formal review regarding his choices during the mission, as well as during training."

Shoichi stiff and unmoving. If he didn't restrain himself, he would no doubt make bad choices. (His son. His son .)

"You may go."

Shoichi wasn't sure he had ever hated Konoha as much as he did in that single moment.

Notes:

Should I publish this as a separate story? I wrote this after NaNo, and it's the start of Part 2 of the story, so it's a clear place to divide the stories?

Chapter 44: Echo - Kimiko

Notes:

This chapter is dedicated to my wonderful friend: Teldra! Happy Birthday!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

I was sitting at home when Ka-san was called away by the ANBU hiding by the window. Asano said that they had all had to learn letters too, but I'm pretty sure I have it the worst. After all, they all had each other, but only Asano ever plays with me. Taro says that he's too old to play, and Hideo has his own friends (even if no one has ever seen them).

Asano and Hideo are at the academy today, and Asano has kunoichi class after school today, which means Sakura is probably coming over. Sakura is bad… but she's weird. Also, Asano never plays with me when Sakura's here. So kunoichi class days are worse.

Luckily , if I get my writing practice done, Ka-san said I can go play with the civilian kids. The civilian kids are all busy unless their lessons are done for the day. I'm really jealous because they all get to go to school together, while Ka-san said that I'll homeschool until it's time to start at the academy, which isn't for another year !

If I only practice writing with one hand, do you think Asano will be mad at me? She always says to practice with both hands but that'll take forever . (Kanji is really difficult!) She probably won't notice anyway.

I run down the hall, slipping and sliding in my socks, into my room. I've always had my own room, but now it's way bigger! Asano still hasn't put in the privacy seals she said she would. She's going to make these ones, the ones in my old room were just from the store, so I'm pretty excited!

I crawl under my bed and pull out the book Asano made me, I'm not allowed to read it when Ka-san's home, so I haven't gotten to read it in ages. The front just has really the words My Home World in really big letters. She wrote it all in hiragana and katakana, so I can read it. She wrote another version in kanji for when I'm bigger too, but she won't let me read it yet because she said sad things happen in it. (Which is silly, I'm six and a half not four. I read sad things.)

I've read the story a lot, but I like it because the I'm in it. Expect instead of being called Kimiko I'm called Katherine (which is a super weird name! But Asano said that people on this planet don't speak our language, so she had to translate it all). Instead of having my hair, Katherine has curly blonde hair and she's a civilian. (Every in the book is a civilian, which seems a bit strange, who protects everyone from the bad guys then?) Asano, Hideo, and Taro are in it too, but they all have different names. Hideo in the story is way smarter than he is in real life!

Also! There aren't any clans! Asano didn't put Ka-san or Tou-san in though, she made up perfect parents instead. Asano calls them Mom and Dad like Sakura calls her parents.

I flip through the book slowly, looking at the little pictures Asano's drawn in the margins. They aren't very good. (Hideo's the best at drawing stuff, but Asano said I can't show this to anyone .)

I can hear the front door open so I slide the book back under my bed and run out. Asano says I should be discrete about reading it, so I make sure to pretend I was using the toilet.

Ka-san looks sad, so I climb onto her lap (even if I don't fit very well anymore) and wrap my arms around her.

"Love you Ka," I say because Asano says that anyone could die at any time, and then they're gone forever. I don't want Ka-san to go away…

"Hello Kimiko," Ka-san says, rubbing her cheek against mine and making me laugh. "Did you do your writing?"

"...Some of it," I say, trying to climb off her lap. I'm too late though and she tickles me!

"Tou-san is picking Asano and Hideo up from the academy, and then we need to talk okay? So go get your writing done before they're home."

"Alright," I sigh and running back to the kitchen table. It's huge! Oji-san made the table and it's really big and when it was new, Asano laid down on top of it and could barely reach each end. I write it all out with my right hand, because Asano is the only who cares if I can use both hands. Even if it's cool when she writes things with both hands at once, I'm no good at it.

When Tou-san gets home he looks really sad too!

Asano and Hideo seem confused, and Asano looks worried (I think that's the face she's making) but neither of them look sad. Asano gives me a hug, and Hideo ruffles my hair, which feels nice but I still frown at him because Ka-san's gonna make me brush my hair again now that he's messed it up.

"Kodomo," Ka-san says, and it takes me a second to remember that that's the formal way to say children… usually she only says it when all four of us are present though. That, and the way Asano falters in her steps towards Ka-san makes me frown. "Come sit down," Ka-san points to the chairs in the living room and we all take a seat.

In the living room Ka-san and Tou-san each sit in separate chairs across from the sofa where I am wedged between Asano and Hideo. Hideo's legs swing back and forth. Asano's fingers twitch. For a moment it feels like the world pauses. Then Ka-san starts talking again.

"Taro's mission went wrong." No one says anything when Asano makes a quiet keening noise. "He's currently missing and is most likely dead." Hideo makes a funny noise and Asano moves to his side and pulls him into a hug. He'll get better though right? I already know the answer though. You don't recover from being dead. Say… goodbye? Did I say goodbye when he left?

"Taro didn't trigger his emergency seal," Tou-san said, voice… cold? Almost. Like he's talking to one of the people who call Ka-san a coward. "At this time, Taro will be labeled as a missing-nin. We can only hope that he is dead or incapacitated, and has not betrayed the village."

I look to Asano: she'll explain it. She always does. They're both crying. Asano's arm is wrapped around Hideo's shoulder, a bit like a hug. Asano looks up and I look at her as I whisper,

"Asano? Taro?" Asano waves for me to sit next to her on the other side of Hideo.

"Kimi, remember when I told you about how when you die, you wake up again as someone else?"

"Yeah?"

"Taro's dead, which means he's going to wake up somewhere else, but he won't remember us."

"But.. how will we see him then?" I ask, a small ache the my head telling me that I already know. That Asano already covered this.

"We can't see him anymore."

"I-" I pause. I know, kind of, what this means… I don't have the words to describe it. "Taro's body is empty?"

"Yeah," Asano says through a sob, I feel my eyes water as well.

"I want Taro!"

"I know. I know. I do too," Asano cries into my hair as she wraps her free arm around me. "I know."

That night I crawl into Asano's bed so she doesn't die too.

Notes:

I want to let readers know that this weekend is the Project for Awesome weekend which you can learn about here: (it's a charity event and super awesome).

1) What did you think of Kimiko's point of view?

2) Whose reaction do you want to see next/the most

3) What do you think happened to Taro?

Chapter 45: Our sweat, our tears - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sakura and Asano, for all that they are really quite good friends, still fight. Of course they do, they're both human. Luckily, despite the fact that Sakura knows she has a hair-trigger, and Asano reads into every action way too deeply, they usually sort things out pretty quickly. Asano basically never stays mad for a more than a day, and Sakura usually lets it go once she's gotten revenge.

The first time that Asano and Sakura got in a real, actual, fight it went on for several days, and it was over the stupidest thing. Sasuke . Sakura had been looking at Shino, since Shino had something and everyone had ignored him. And Asano had thought she was looking at Sasuke, and made a snarky comment. Sakura, despite knowing that Asano probably didn't mean it got annoyed, in part because she felt a bit embarrassed she had loved him (she really hadn't thought that through) and also because it was none of Asano's business (so what if she still thought he was cute)!

Sakura wouldn't say sorry, and Asano's sorry was flat, and rather blank and sounded entirely insincere.

It took a week for something to change. It was Hideo, actually, who did it. During lunchtime he found Sakura and took her to the side.

"Sakura?" Sakura looked up to see Hideo, Asano's old brother standing nearby. He looked a bit embarrassed. "Can I talk to you for a moment?" Sakura glanced around the near empty classroom. Most of the other students went out to play during lunch so it was fairly deserted.

"Um?" Sakura's mouth was open, and making noise without any thought having gone into it. Without a plan. "Sure?" Hideo made an obvious glance around the room to where Shino, Hinata, and Etsuko each sat independently.

"Can we go into the hallway?" Hideo asked after a moment.

"Okay," Sakura stood, and after a moment of deliberation left her lunch sitting on her desk next to her bag. Hideo led the way out the door, and or a moment they stood in the warm, empty hallway in silence. It only then occurred to her that as Asano's brother, he might take offense to their fight, and might express that in a physically violent way. In a physically violent way against Sakura. (Inner looked pale in terror, before running far away into the far expanses of her mind.)

"I-" Hideo's mouth twitched, "Asano-" he sighed, and raised a hand to rest his face on. "Asano is weird. In a lot of ways. One of which is that when she's emotional or upset, it turns… inside." Hideo said, lowering his hand to tap his sternum. "I didn't notice for a long time. So I thought she was ingenuine or didn't care." Ahhh. The realisation dawned on Sakura, he wasn't annoyed with herself or Asano, he was annoyed with himself.

"I'm not as clever as Taro. But he's not noticed yet I don't think. So- Just. I doesn't mean you have to accept her apologies, and it doesn't make whatever she did okay just. You don't realise what's happening in her head." At that Hideo grimace and glanced away, clearly remembering something Sakura wasn't privy to.

It was quiet for a long, awkward moment before Sakura said,

"Thank you for telling me…" Hideo grinned, his usual cheerful self returned and he waved at her and turned to leave,

"Just think about it!" Then he ran down the hall, probably to play with his friends.

It wasn't something that Sakura thought on often, that revelation. Hideo had been right, in a way. Not completely, Asano did show strong emotions, but differently. Like an echo or a reflection of an emotion. She hated to look weak, Sakura learned. (She had learned that long before, in the aftermath of the massacre though, even if she hadn't known what it had meant at the time with Asano screaming at Sakura to get out of her room through tears.)

She was thinking about it now. The day before Asano's dad had pulled her out of class early, and Iruka-sensei had a strange look on his face. Not quite sad, not quite angry. ("Smad," Inner laughed.)

Asano was back in class today, but a little different. (Like the streets, erie without the pale skinned, black haired police officers. Strange in a way she couldn't identify until it was pointed out.)

Sakura wasn't as good as Asano at reading people, or the little patterns that Asano always seemed to watch for. She wasn't as good at snap judgements. (Asano claimed those came with experience - which was stupid because Sakura was six months older !") Sakura couldn't read people , but she could read Asano . (Sakura-and-Asano. Asano-and-Sakura.)

Something had happened, was no doubt ringing in Asano's head. Something big. (Maybe, probably, Asano sometimes took criticism really hard though.) Sakura hoped it was something small. Maybe her room was messy and her mother had told her off. ("But then why was she pulled out of class?" Inner reminded her.)

As the class drained out for break, Asano turned away from the window she had been staring through to reveal a tear stained face. Sakura froze, unsure of the correct response. Usually you were supposed to comfort crying people, but Asano wouldn't like that.

"Taro's gone missing." Asano said it so blankly, so flatly, that it took Sakura a second to process her words. (Asano's body was completely still, even if Sakura could see the rapid thrum of her pulse on her neck - Sakura's book had an entire page and a half about that spot.)

"Like, Missing, or missing." They were two very different things after all. To be Missing meant you had betrayed your family, your friends, and (worst of all) your village. To be missing… well you'd gone after a stray cat and got lost. That sort of thing.

"I don't know." Asano's eyes weren't looking at Sakura, or maybe they were. Either way, the light wasn't reflecting off of them like it normally did, her gaze seemed distant, even as tears slid their way down her face. "He was on a mission and hasn't returned. His team had split up to avoid enemies. He's being labelled Missing." Somehow, despite the fact that Missing and missing were the same word, Sakura could hear the emphasis, the weight to it.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said, because she was. It was a sad thing. She had liked Taro, even beyond his vaguely attractive appearance he was smart, and could have a smart, deadpan wit if he chose. He sometimes added to her conversations with Asano when they had both forgotten he was in the room. He knew about the books they were reading, she thought. She didn't think he cared all that much. (She wasn't even quite sure he saw her as a person, to him, Sakura was an attachment of Asano, not a person on her own. But everyone was that way to him. It wasn't personal in both the coldest, and most literal of ways.)

"So am I," Asano murmured. And something shattered. Not a real thing. Sakura wasn't even sure why she said that, it was just- there was. Something on Asano's face shift. Shut down.

"Hello there." Sakura jumped at the voice behind her, coming down the path between benches. The man was a shinobi, chunin based on the vest. He had a bandana on his head instead of the normal headband, and despite his somewhat cold tone he had a kind look to him. "I need to borrow Sakurai-chan for a little while. Her teacher is already aware. She'll be back before the end of the day." Sakura frowned slightly when she realised that the man was talking to her, instead of Asano herself.

Sakura glanced at her friend, trying to figure out if the man was being rude, or Asano already knew what was going on. She couldn't tell though, from the steady, unrushed way that Asano took and packed up her things.

"Thank you for listening." Asano said, briefly placing a hand on Sakura's head before she left with the man.

Sakura continued to stare at the closed door her friend had left through than perhaps made sense. That goodbye had seemed awfully final.

Luckily, it was not. And indeed, Asano was back by the end of the day. Largely the same, but there was something subtly different. Some part of her that had cracked at the arrival of the chunin and had not repaired itself.

"So where did you go?"

"I went to Torture and Interrogation so that a profile could be made for Taro based on his closest friends and family." After a pause Asano continued in an uncharacteristically soft voice, "that might be classified, I'm not sure."

"Are you okay?" Sakura asked, Inner providing gut wrenching imagines of genjutsu torture forced upon Asano, leaving no mark on her body.

"Well. No, but not from that - the interrogation was very mild." Asano said, eyes looking off towards the horizon. "Can we go to your house. I don't think I want to be in mine right now."

"Of course," Sakura said, ignoring Choji's questioning look as she dragged Asano out of the academy gates. It was Asano's business who she told, and even if she did decide to tell him, she could go it later.

Sakura's house was blessedly empty, and it was strange how a terrible event could cause something normal to feel like such a relief. Instead the dust danced endlessly around the main room as winter sunlight spilled in through the windows and Sakura was led to her room by an increasingly fast Asano.

Sakura watched, feeling like an outsider in a way she rarely had since they had met, as Asano slammed Sakura's bedroom door shut and grabbed a blanket from the end of her bed. Asano wrapped herself up in the blanket before sitting, with something like determination, on Sakura's bed. She watched, somewhat stunned as Asano's face went from blank and cold and ever so disturbing to red and tear stained and sobbing .

It occured to Sakura, that she felt entirely unprepared for how to respond, and hoped to never know, since it seemed likely that to be prepared she would have to have suffered a similar loss.

"I wouldn't have died for him you know." Asano said, at some point. Each moment was agonisingly awkward to Sakura, but no matter how the seconds dragged, she found herself unable to tell how much time had passed exactly since Asano's crying had begun. "I loved him but I didn't feel responsible for him. And now I feel guilty for it which is stupid because even if I had been willing to die for him that doesn't mean I could have saved him from leaving or dying or getting captured for whatever! It's not my fault that something happened to him! But all I can think is-" Asano's voice had become increasingly tight and choked up as she spoke until another sob broke through her words.

"All I can think is-" Asano repeated a few times, seemingly unable to find the words, or perhaps too overwhelmed to say what came next. Eventually she stopped trying and went back to crying desperately, occasionally grabbing a tissue from the box on Sakura's window sill. (It was convenient since Asano was both: over often, and regularly sick.)

At some point Sakura joined Asano on the bed, sitting closely, one arm wrapped somewhat awkwardly around her best friend. Eventually the sobbed subsided and Asano was left, cold and wet and tired. Sakura stood to grab a water and as she opened the door she hear Asano murmur, perhaps to herself, perhaps to Sakura:

"All I can think is that it's my fault."

When Sakura gets back Asano is asleep, face red and body wrapped in a blanket on Sakura's bed.

The next morning Sakura woke up alone in her bed.

This was not particularly unusual, even when Asano stayed over and they shared that space. Asano woke up early and seemed to find it difficult to lay in leisure in the morning. It was strange to see in someone who could be so still for so long, but in the mornings something about Asano thrummed. Not the content humming of a morning person the way Sakura's father did. Nor the reluctant gurgle of Sakura's mother who was very much a night person. Instead it was a sort of strained stillness. As if Asano had the world to conquer, despite the morning breath and heavy eyelids.

When Sakura paused in getting dressed, glancing out the window to be sure she wasn't running late (it wasn't likely, Asano would've made sure to wake her up, then again, Asano hadn't really seemed like she was present enough to have noticed yesterday so who knew). She knew her clothing was nothing special, like most she wore a similar if not identical outfit each day. This year however, was the first year she wore clothes she had chosen, instead of her parents. ( A note covered in coin about being old enough to buy her out things. She wasn't bitter though. )

It wasn't as flashy as some of the other girls, but the red t-shirt made her feel important, and with the white circle it matched the Haruno clan symbol which was a white circle surrounded by (bright bloody) red. Asano had helped her reinforce the knees of her black trousers, and even sewed on two extra pockets on the thighs, 'combat pants' as Asano called them.

Asano had, of course, pointed out that wearing bright red in the field was maybe not the brightest idea ever, but they weren't in the field yet and Sakura was going to enjoy the safety of Konoha while she could. Bright red t-shirts and all.

In the kitchen Asano was making breakfast, and singing something in gibberish.

" You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey,"

Asano had described how she had made up her own language, the meanings no in particular combinations like normal, but it was language where the meaning came from the type of sound. Sakura had a nagging feeling that what she was singing was not that language. That the gibberish came from somewhere other than her own head.

It was one of Asano's private things. She never used it in public, or when her family was around - as far as Sakura could tell. It was not the only weird thing about Asano, but it was perhaps one of the most distinct. (Although since Asano was Sakura's first best friend, maybe it wasn't so special. Maybe a lot of people had a secret language they never told anyone about and only used at strange times. Like to swear. Or when they're really, really upset or tired.)

It was something used in delicate moments, something like a prayer.

" Please don't take, my sunshine away."

Asano scooped the rice into a bowl for each of them, tears dripping down her face even though she was smiling, and seemed a lot more human than she had the night before.

Breakfast was quiet, Asano was clearly lost in thought, and Sakura let her own mind wander. The book had a small note that death would be overcome, eventually. It had pointed out that Second Hokage Tobirama had started a jutsu that would revive the dead. Sakura was unsure if that was true or not, she'd never heard anything of the kind, but if it was… Well it was easy to say that Sakura would do just about anything to revive Asano should she die.

("Would you kill to bring her back?" Inner asked, and Sakura paused because… yes. Yes she would. She'd never killed anyone before, and she wasn't looking forward to it. That said, it would be a part of her life at some point, and she valued Asano's life above just about anyone else's. Maybe even more than her parents.)

As soon as Asano and Sakura arrived at the academy, they were ambushed by a panicked looking Hideo.

"Do you know what you've done?!" He exclaimed, grabbing Asano's shoulders and shaking her back and forth, "Kimiko hasn't stopped crying! She thinks you're dead!"

"What." Sakura said, not daring to try and remove Hideo's hands. His hair was distinctly unbrushed and his shirt had… something on it.

"Kimiko has been sleeping with me since we learned about Taro. I don't-" Asano sounded confused.

"She was sleeping with you so that 'you didn't die' according to her, and then you didn't come home. Like Taro didn't come home . How did you think she would respond you idiot!"

"I- I stay at Sakura's all the time?"

" Things are different now!" Hideo hissed, looking genuinely upset in a way that was far too private to show in public. Sakura couldn't help but take a step back. Asano's siblings were all rather terrible at thinking about how their actions affected the people around them. This was just one of many examples.

"I'm sorry, I didn't- I'm sorry." Asano said, looking somewhat baffled by the turn of events.

"I know you didn't you idiot. Just a sec, Tou-san's around here somewhere." Hideo let go of his sister briefly to glance around, Sakura joined in to find Asano's Dad asleep against a nearby tree. "TOU!"

Asano's father was standing before them faster than Sakura's eyes could follow, and upon seeing Asano, pulled her into a tight hug. He lifted her up and set her against his hip, which was odd to watch since Asano was fairly average for their age and Asano's dad wasn't super tall so they weren't that far apart in height. Nonetheless as a shinobi, Asano's dad had all the strength he needed to carry her however he wanted.

"Oh Sano, you can't do that anymore. Kimiko was so scared," Asano's dad said to her rather surprised face. ("He's saying that Kimiko was scared, but I get the feeling that she wasn't the only one." Inner observed from the safety of Sakura's mind. Sakura agreed.)

"Tou-san," Asano murmured, hugging her father tightly. "I need to go to class or we'll be late. I'll be home after school. Sakura'll be with me."

"That's fine," he said, placing Asano back onto the ground, "I've got to go. Just remember to be safe and remember-"

"I love you." Asano blurt out, looking as surprised by her declaration as her father did.

"Of course you do," he said after a moment, a small smile making the corner of his lips curl. He ruffled her hair, making her scowl ever so slightly despite the way it made her glow.

"You're gonna get me in trouble with Ka-san for having messy hair." Asano grumbled as she headed towards the school. Her father laughed and waved before he lept away.

"See ya' later Hideo!" Asano shouted at her brother's already distant form before turning back to Sakura. "Thanks for letting me stay over last night, I really needed it."

"I know," Sakura laughed, despite how awful yesterday had been. Asano hadn't exactly been discrete yesterday.

Asano slides into her normal seat (by the window of course) and Sakura next to her.

"Is Shikamaru staring at you?" Sakura whispers after a moment, because it kind of felt like he was staring at one of them, and it wouldn't really make sense for him to be staring at herself. Asano stiffened but didn't look behind her.

"I hope not. That'd be weird." She said after a moment, after another couple of seconds she relaxed and added, "it's not like I can do anything about it if he is."

The rest of the class slowly filed in, although Sakura noted that Shino was out today - probably at home sick. (Asano had pointed out that Shino got sick when the weather got colder as well, probably because of his bugs.) Finally when there was everyone in except Naruto, Iruka-sensei started lessons (a few minutes early actually). If anyone else was missing Sensei probably would have waited until it was officially time for lessons, but Naruto was late so often it wasn't worth waiting for.

Today's lesson was about hunting, killing, and cooking animals for the field trip they would be taking in a couple of weeks when it started to get warmer. The key pieces seemed to be that one should focus on making the animal's death as painless as possible, and to remove their guts before cooking. Sensei explained that they would be working on stealth for the next couple of weeks so that they would be able to sneak up on the animals when the time came. Sakura was sceptical of how much they could improve in the next few weeks - most people in the class weren't exactly quiet, herself and Asano included.

A few days later proved Sakura wrong.

Stealth was hard, and definitely not her strong point, but Asano was pretty good at it. Most of the class had pretty mixed results - Hinata and Kiba were both really good at it, Sasuke was hilariously terrible at it. The rest of the class was somewhere in between for the most part. Most of the civilian kids were pretty bad at it, even the orphans were better than the ones with parents. (Actually, the orphans, although mixed, seemed less disadvantaged here than most other subjects.)

Sensei explained that it was about being inconspicuous. You didn't have to be silent, just unnoticeable. Indistinct. When Sakura heard this she felt less surprised that Asano wasn't having much difficulty.

Naruto was being more disruptive than usual for some reason. He also was getting more obsessed with some stupid idea of being Hokage. He was stupidly loud about it, especially when Sensei was busy or out of the room. It was starting to drive Sakura crazy, and she'd noticed Asano twitching at it as well.

Sakura had other things on her mind though. Asano had taken Taro's disapperane and decided she needed to be stronger. As she explained it, "pressure can make you break, or it can make you stronger than before. I'm not willing to break just yet." This obviously meant that Sakura was also getting stronger now, and not without work put into it either.

"Sakura? Are you awake?" Asano poked her and Sakura groaned.

"No. I'm not awake."

"It's time to get up," Asano was no doubt smiling to go along with that stupid sing-song voice. "There's food warm and ready!"

"Go 'way," Sakura rolled over so she was facing the wall with her back to Asano.

"Nope!"

Sakura shivered as her blankets were suddenly pulled away from her.

"Nooooooooo….." They both knew it was futile though. Sakura hoped that one day Asano would give up though. Just let them both die once they were fully qualified shinobi, it'd be worth it get another couple hours of sleep each morning for the next couple of years.

"UP!"

Sakura lurched in alarm and Asano took the chance to grab the arm previously curled tight against her chest and used it to tug her off the bed. At this point, Sakura gave all hope and stood up, but she made sure to loudly complain about painful bruise that would no doubt form where she had hit the floor.

"Yeah yeah yeah, let's get going." Asano says, helpfully tugging Sakura out the door while she struggles to pull on her sweatpants. (Oh glorious sweatpants, Sakura regrets holding out on buying a pair before now. She thought they looked too sloppy but 6am in Konoha wasn't warm enough to avoid them.)

Once down in the kitchen Asano held out a plate of eggs and green things that Sakura's still bleary eyes failed to distinguish. It wasn't the best breakfast Sakura had ever had, but she hadn't made it herself which made it about a thousand times better. As she ate, Sakura, and thus Inner started to wake up properly. (" Wait….." )

"Asano?"

"Yeah?" Asano turned off the water and turned away from the dirty dishes she was washing. ("So helpful!")

"How… how did you get into my house?"

"Ahhhh-" Asano flushed and turned towards the sink to continue scrubbing the bits of egg stuck to the pan. "I might've stolen your keys yesterday. But only because you wouldn't let me in yesterday morning!"

"I let you in eventually," Sakura insisted through a mouthful of kale? Spinach? Seaweed? Clearly her mouth wasn't awake yet. Asano sent a her a glare that made Sakura smile.

"Right, well I had to make sure that didn't happen again. And of course we have twice as much work to do since we didn't manage it yesterday."

"You could've done it without me," Sakura grumbled, handing Asano her empty plate and gulping down her glass of water.

"Of course I couldn't, don't be silly. Anyway, I was thinking we'll stretch, then run, then do strength training before we meditate."

"...That sounds like way too much. I'm pretty sure we're supposed to spread the work out."

"You're right, but we were supposed to do strength training yesterdays and missed it, and I can't have you thinking it's worth trying to skip. So today we'll do both." Asano finished in a satisfied tone. Sakura groans quietly, because Asano is never going to let her escape this until she is done with it. And Sakura likes sleeping. Sleep is good. Underrated. (Sakura had never been the kid to deny her afternoon nap, not until she started reading at least.)

Training grounds were made exclusively for ranked shinobi, the purpose behind that was likely so there was less worry about civilian spies or little kids getting in the way. Unfortunately that meant that the best place for them to exercise was at Asano's house. Which was pretty crowded in the morning.

As they arrived Hideo and Asano's Uncle were already there - though they moved when Asano's Uncle saw her. Kimiko was sitting outside watching, and came to join them when Hideo and their Uncle wandered into the small forest behind the house. Poor Kimiko didn't seem too much happier about being awake than Sakura was, but she refused to sleep when Asano wasn't there.

The other day Asano's parents had been outside exercising when they had arrived. It had actually been quite interesting to watch, it looked like the stretches they were doing were made to keep Asano's mom's legs from atrophying. Sakura had never really thought about such a thing before, Asano had already explained that her mom couldn't walk, Sakura hadn't thought about it much beyond that.

"Stretching first?" Sakura asked through a yawn as the sunrise blinded her.

Asano agreed and they sat on the (luckily dry) grass. Asano led the stretches, running through half a dozen automatically, each to the count of eight. (Why eight? Sakura had no idea. Maybe because it was twice four, and four was death?) After that Asano slowed down a bit, clearly trying to remember what came next.

The stretches were strange, and Sakura got the feeling it was a conglomeration of a wide range of different styles. As pre-teen girls, both Sakura and Asano were fairly flexible, and as Asano had pointed out several days ago, they should probably take advantage of that. Sakura remembered her Mom being rather flexible, so they planned on asking her for advice when she got home.

To Asano's disappointment her own parents weren't much help when it came to flexibility. Neither of them had been able to remember the stretches they'd been taught as genin (thought they had excused it as the war making it hard to have a clear education). Asano's mother had a much stronger focus on strength and stamina when she had been an active duty shinobi, and her father was something of a 'jack of all trades' (one of Asano's terms, but Sakura liked it more than most of them).

Running wasn't new, like everything else, and Sakura enjoyed it a lot more. Perhaps in part because while Asano was annoyingly flexible, she was even worse than Sakura at running. Neither of them were great at it, so it wasn't a huge accomplishment to be sure, but it was nice to be better than Asano at something .

"Hey Sakura?" Asano panted, from somewhere behind her.

"Yeah?" Sakura asked, trying to make sure she maintained an 'upright posture', something that she still sometimes forgot and then proceeded to lose points on because Sensei was ruthless .

"I hate you," Asano announced, finishing one part of their daily routine. She always hated Sakura during the runs, but at some point before they had to seperate Asano would give her a tight (and often sweaty) hug and whisper "I love you," into her ear.

It wasn't romantic. They weren't like that, they were 10 after all, it always felt odd to Sakura, who didn't come from a particularly verbal family. Sakura had seen Asano do the same to just about everyone else in her family (except for her Uncle, which was understandable because he was both new and strange). It still felt weird to be on the receiving end though.

"I know," Sakura agreed, and waved at the wall guard as they passed. Running on the Konoha wall was hard. Konoha was not a small place, but they had agreed to work up to it, so instead they ran from the edge of wall near Asano's house, over the part of the wall that was closest to Sakura's house (but still not that close since Sakura lived in inner Konoha) and then they ran back if they could manage. It was a bit embarrassing to be so obviously out of breath from just running a third of the wall, but it was better than the eighth that Asano had collapsed at the end of when they were starting.

"Just so we're clear." Asano confirmed before pulling Sakura into a surprise sweaty hug - her least favourite kind. "You've got my sweat on you!" Asano shouted, pulling Sakura to the ground from behind before sprinting ahead. (" EW!" Inner screamed, as Sakura very much wanted to.) Instead she stood up and went to chase after her no-good-very-bad-extra-terrible best friend.

It was a struggle, as it always was. Her lungs were uncomfortably tight and her whole body felt too hot.

"I! AM!" Sakura paused shouting so she could breath, Asano already growing closer, "TO! KILL! Ohmygod," Sakura stopped running and walked slowly as a cramp attacked her side. Freaking cramps. Despite her loss of motivation Sakura couldn't just give up on her declaration, "YOU!"

She could hear Asano laughing from here.

She could also see that Asano had just tripped up against the edge of the wall while laughing and was now looking very dead. ("Serves her right." Inner declared, still looking fairly pristine. It really wasn't fair.)

A green blur darted past. A shinobi that had never stopped to say high, but passed them every morning they ran. Multiple times. Sakura ignored it with her steadily growing experience. But god did she hate running.

They didn't manage to fit strength training in that morning, Asano's mother insisting they both eat breakfast and leave on time for the academy (to Sakura's great relief). Asano, always a touch weak willing when it came to exercise, despite appearances, relented. They wouldn't have to do a double session to catch up unless Sakura missed another day.

(Sakura didn't much like exercising, but she didn't mind the feeling that came after. The one she got after a run when her whole body felt like it was singing and she could feel her chakra thrumming inside her and all of her senses were sharper. Or when she finished showering and changing into the clothes she kept at Asano's and her hair was wet and she was clean, but she could feel a slight soreness in her legs. She didn't much like exercising, but she quite enjoyed the effects.)

Notes:

A/N: I'm trying to post a chapter each weekend, so this chapter is a bit late - sorry about that! I'm still planning on releasing a new chapter on Saturday, but I only just finished this one so who knows what'll happen. This chapter is more than 5k and is more than twice the length of the next longest chapter and took longer to write than I expected. Also this chapter has worse editing than usual. I'm very sorry. I wanted to publish before I went to bed but I am very tired right now.

1) Do you have any opinions on chapter length?
2) Do you care about their exercising or should I just brush over it?
3) Do you feel like Asano's response to Taro's disappearance is realistic?

Happy Holidays!
Mysana

Chapter 46: Wounds - Shoichi

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Time passes, as time does, but the wounds of Taro's disappearance don't heal quite like they should. Shoichi's not sure if his children have noticed, but Yoko certainly has. None of the kids have ever suffered a loss like this one before, so he wouldn't be surprised if they didn't recognise the way the pain of his disappearance fails to become normal. It takes months to stop setting a place for him at dinner, or buy enough food for 6 people instead of 7.

Yohei barely seems to recognise that Taro's gone, but then again, they hadn't known each other all that well despite living in the same house for months (years? Shoichi's not sure, Yohei just feels like a fixture in their lives).

There is no funeral for Taro, he's not been announced dead after all. There's no gravestone or ashes, his name isn't on the memorial stone. He's just… missing.

Kimiko has the hardest time, she can't tell the difference between 'missing' as in Hideo forgot to warn anyone that he had to go to the store after school, or Shoichi's mission ran late, and Taro's 'missing' and being gone forever. She doesn't understand why everyone is acting like he's dead. No one is quite willing to explain in detail that if he's not dead, then something worse has happened.

Asano runs into Shoichi's room one day, sobbing uncontrollably. Between sobs she explained that she had found a book Taro would've liked and had gone to share it with him. She'd forgotten until she'd opened the door to his room. Shoichi holds her tightly, and doesn't mention that Yoko still washes Taro's sheets, and dusts off his desk. (Taro had been so excited when he'd gotten the hardwood desk for his birthday. He'd enjoyed filling the drawers with clutter and covering its surface in clothes, mission gear, and notes about potential specialisations in the future.)

Shoichi can hardly bare to think about the idea that Taro could be alive. He could be a missing-nin. He could've been captured and no one is looking for him. He could be in a coma in a far off civilian village. He could have amnesia and can't remember where Konoha is, or why he needs to return. The thought of if hurts. It hurts so much .

It brings back memories of Asano's birth, of the uncertainty of her life hanging over his head.

Some days Shoichi can barely function. Yoko is not immune to the pain of losing Taro, but she responds to it differently. She's started to work on her chakra control to see if she can be a healer, she's started borrowing Asano's textbooks to see if she could be an academy teacher. Shoichi doesn't bother to point out that they'll never accept her in either. Medics need to be able to move quickly, to be reach the operating table, which is too tall for Yoko in her wheelchair. Teachers need to be able to protect students in a time of crisis. They need to be able to seperate fights.

Hideo graduates.

He's not top of his class, like Taro was, but he's in the top half. His team fails their sensei's test though, and Hideo returns to the academy for one more term with the 33 other students who failed. He'll retake the graduation exam and go onto a new team at the end of it, so Shoichi's not too worried.

(Shoichi tries not to think about what would've happened if Taro hadn't become a shinobi. He'd always known it wasn't something Taro was excited for, not the way Asano was. He wonders if Yoko had thought about trying to push Taro to become a medic like he had wanted to. He can't let himself go down that path though.)

Shoichi stands, pokes his current teammate, Santa Yamanaka, awake.

"It's your shift."

"Right right, give me a moment please." The other man groans, and Shoichi take that time to tuck the sword he had sitting next to him back into the sheath. He's not great at kenjutsu, but it's something he's decided to practice in his free time. It's always good to practice new skills. It couldn't hurt to have a non-chakra based weapon either. (Was that what happened? Did Taro run out of chakra?)

Yamanaka sat and stretched slowly, no doubt he could be ready in a second if he had to, but Shoichi saw no reason to make the man's life any more difficult. Unfortunately Shoichi couldn't relax until his replacement was ready. He wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep either way, but it was always important to rest, even if genuine sleep refused to come.

After a few minutes the other man was ready, hair back in a ponytail and kunai in hand and Shoichi was able to crawl under his blankets and close his eyes.

In his dreams Taro returned home, happier than Shoichi had seen him in ages. On the whole it was a pleasant dream, but each action was tinged by a sort of lingering fear. What if Taro's attempts to quit shinobi work failed? What if Yoko got mad at him? What if Asano stopped respecting her older brother? What if all his other children followed and the Hokage thought that Shoichi had poisoned his children against the shinobi lifestyle?

Waking up was almost a relief. (Oh but it hurt so much, to know that Taro would never again sneak in the front door and try to hide in his room before Yoko called him to help her with something.)

The mission was not the most pleasant ever, one of Konoha's informants had started double dealing information, and it was Yamanaka's job to figure out who it was to. Shoichi wasn't qualified to perform physical interrogation, but he was decently skilled at soft interrogation which mostly relied on seeking reliable and reasonable.

Their third on the mission would've been an Uchiha, before the massacre. Shoichi couldn't say how exactly knew that, but he'd had such missions before. Uchiha were good for these missions maybe. Either way, he could feel the hole that Takibi Uchiha left. (God it's been year since he died. It hasn't felt that long.) Instead they had a new chunin name Chuugo, and orphan probably, based on the lack of last name.

It was a B-rank mission despite the lack of fighting expected, no one wanted genin to accidentally end up with a mission like this, where their target was often dead by the end of it. It was almost worse than an assassination mission, because of the interrogation that happened before the target could be allowed to die.

"Sakurai?" Yamanaka asked from his place at the head of their group.

"Yes?"

"Have you heard any reports of bandits in the area?"

"No, why?"

"I just saw a rusty sword stuck to a tree a short ways back."

"Aah," Shoichi responded noncommittally. Rusty swords was a rather cliche mark for bandits.

"You've made your first kill right, Chuugo?" Yamanaka asked and Shoichi nearly scoffed at the idea of being a chunin before having your first kill. Except… it wasn't quite so impossible now, as it had been when Shoichi was younger… Oh Kami. He's been a shinobi for 20 years now. (He's almost as old as his mother was, when she died.)

"Yeah," Chuugo said and Shoichi could almost sigh. The tone of voice very clearly said that he had killed… just not very much.

"The mission isn't very time sensitive." Shoichi said, mostly because he knew Yamanaka was already thinking it.

"You're right Shoichi, we should go have a look around!" Yamanaka sent a cheeky smile that Shoichi scowled at. He didn't dislike this particularly Yamanaka, but did he have to be so nosey. Their mission wasn't about any bandits. And they could set it as a C-rank mission for genin who needed to make their first kill when they got back.

Instead, Shoichi knew that if he protested Yamanaka would preach social responsibility. He would talk about how much easier we could make life for others by taking care of it now - if they was indeed anything to take care of. Shoichi would, of course, be forced to relent because he couldn't exactly say that he didn't care whatsoever about Konoha and it could go fuck itself because they let his brother, mother, and son all die and disappear. That wouldn't exactly go over well.

So Shoichi scowled and grumbled, all the while well aware that Yamanaka knew it was a persona. Yamanaka just had the wrong idea of what it was covering, that was all. For some reason, through the dozen or so missions they'd completed together, Yamanaka had developed this idea that I was a grouchy old man with a heart of gold, or something like that at least.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Chuugo asked, looking rather uncertain as Yamanaka started to shift aim towards the left where he had presumably seen the rusty sword in question.

"Nope," Shoichi assured, "but it's the sort of thing do gooders like Yamanaka insist upon." After a pause he added, "don't worry, you probably won't die." Actually… that probably didn't sound particularly reassuring either. Oh well.

"Do gooder?" Chuugo quietly echoed, sounding confused. Shoichi winced, he never meant to use Asano's strange made up terms, but somehow one would sneak in on occasion.

"Sakurai, get up here!" Yamanaka shouted, sounding rather more serious than just bandits deserved. Then again, Yamanaka took his duties as a helpful shinobi very seriously, so it doesn't necessarily mean that something had gone wrong…

If only Shoichi was so lucky as a person.

Before Shoichi even managed to take the three seconds to reach Yamanaka there was a flurry of kunai coming down upon them. Kunai in general weren't particularly dangerous to high level chunin and above, meaning Yamanaka and Shoich could both dodge them fairly easily. Chuugo, on the other hand, got hit at least once. Shoichi could hear the wet ch-thunk sound of a kunai impaling flesh, and the soft

" Fuck ," that came with pain softed with adrenaline. Shoichi echoed Chuugo, no one wanted to deal with missing-nin with new chunin. (Please don't let Taro be one of the missing-nin.) At least Chuugo wasn't a genin, Shoichi had been saved at least that much.

Shoichi wasn't a chakra sensor. That said, almost any shinobi who's survived long enough starts to develop… well something of a detection. There were levels of it, of course. Some people got so good at it they became classified as a sensor, some people never developed it at all. Shoichi was, as per usual, in between and could feel the group of five shinobi ahead of them, now that he was aware that they existed.

Groups of five were most common in Iwa, where chunin made up squadrons of five and troops of 15. Konoha, Shoichi could happily admit, did not have a lot of missing-nin. (Although the ones Konoha did have seemed to be abnormally strong, which was… not great.) Kiri probably had the most defectors and betrayers… for obvious reasons. Iwa though, Iwa probably had the least number of missing-nin of any of the major villages. Shoichi wasn't sure why, but defecting from Iwa just didn't happen that often. Or maybe it was just that the defectors didn't last long enough to be noticed.

Shoichi felt a twitch in one of their enemies chakra.

On something even more base than instinct Shoichi's body moved, his feet repelled against the branch, his arms raised to grab a nearby branch and he swung himself as far out of range as he could manage. Just in time to see the needle sharp earth spear straight through puncturing the branch he'd been standing on.

Shoichi was bored on fighting honestly. He'd been fighting since he was nine, killing has stopped being traumatising, adrenaline has stopped making him grin with the feeling that he could fight anyone . Shoichi was used to fighting.

He was scared of war though.

"Non-lethal takedown only !" He shouted, despite the knowledge that their enemies may have heard him. He couldn't risk not telling them in time. He couldn't see them so he couldn't sign them, Shuugo hadn't been a chunin long enough to know all the chunin voice calls.

The Iwa nin team was situated on the ground, and as Konoha nin his team was far safer in the trees. That would be okay for Yamanaka who was a long distance fighter and himself who was mid-ranged. Chuugo though was both the weakest, and the closest range with a taijutsu focus.

Shit .

(Would he let the squad die to prevent another war? If it came down to that? Or would he be another White Fang?)

Shoichi dropped to the bottom layer of branches, just out of the Iwa nin's sight. He couldn't see any headbands. Double shit .

(Three men, two women. At least one taijutsu specialist and a kenjutsu user. All of them have darker skin tones which means they definitely aren't from somewhere like the Land of Snow, and they probably aren't from Land of Lightning which tends towards even darker tones. They could - theoretically be from Kiri though, just based on skin tone.

Two different members have dark red hair - a signature of Iwa blood.)

Shoichi ran through the hand signs he knew better than his own children. RatRatBoar

"Fire thread jutsu " It was a containment jutsu that didn't work all that well on its own, but he'd worked enough with Yamanaka to know that the man's genjutsu worked a charm with his own ninjutsu. The thin line of fire coming from Shoichi's mouth made a gentle loop around the squad just above ground level.

"Sable flesh." Yamanaka whispered from the other side of the Iwa nin. God the Yamanaka whisper projection was so creepy. Sable flesh was a genjutsu that Yamanaka got from his clan. Shoichi doesn't know what it does, and he doesn't really want to. All he wants to say is never fuck with a Yamanaka. They are terrifying.

"Tell Chuugo to stay back, he'll just get hurt in this fight if he has to hold back and they don't." Shoichi whispered to the empty hair and hoped that Yamanaka could pass on the message. Chuugo would get hurt either way, these guys are working together like they've trained since they were four. Which they very well might've, Konoha's intelligence on Iwa training was lacking.

"Where the fuck did they go, Asshole?" One of the women hissed to a tall, rather thin man wearing a worn chunin vest (neutral colouring without any village association). Some teams have different types of interaction. Shoichi, as a team jumper knew that better than most. Despite the course language there was a certain lack of tension that only came from weakness or feelings of safety.

It made sense of them to not be concerned, there weren't a lot of Konoha shinobi in this area usually. More genin and missing-nin than anyone else.

"Gimme a sec, I'm not a sensor you know!"

"Of course I know, I'm just saying, do your 'not sensing' faster ."

Shoichi could see as the genjutsu hooked them. The loud woman's eyes bulged and a shaky breath was released. The tall taijutsu focused man looked sharply to the side so faster Shoichi wondered if he would break his own neck. That would make things a lot easier.

One of the great downsides of genjutsu was that it was a bit like poison, and took awhile to take effect. Another downside was that it affected people at different rates. Like a taller man would take longer to be taken down by poison, a smarter or better trained person would last longer against genjutsu. Only milliseconds longer, but that could be enough for things to go fucking terrible.

"There's something wrong." 'Asshole' hissed as the rest of his already lost squad. "Oh fuck." 'Asshole's eyes crossed briefly before returning to normal.

Shoichi jerks his head back his hisses in through his teeth, tightening the fire thread around the group so that it lightly touched those furthest out. Their clothes start to smolder and the four under the genjutsu shuffle in like cattle.

"YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!" are the last words on the tall man's behalf before this eyes glaze over and his breath becomes eerily rhythmic.

"Alright, Chuugo, are you good for some easy knockouts?" Shoichi says through his teeth once they're as close together as possible and the genjutsu continues to hold.

"Yep, on it!" Chuugo drops down from above, making Shoichi frown. He was supposed to be out of the way. If things had gone badly, just out of sight in the trees wouldn't have been nearly far enough away. Chuugo pulls out the lastest knockout breathalyzer, made for the one in a hundred times that your victims are already unable to fight you.

All Shoichi can think is that Taro would've been so much smarter. (Hideo won't though, Hideo will make those silly mistakes and believe the ads suppliers hand away, he'll be smart about action though. He's got a decent head on his shoulders when it comes down to it.)

Once Chuugo has safely put the end of the breathalyzer into the Iwa nins' mouths and held it there for 10 to 15 seconds to ensure they'll be out for at least another 10 hours, Shoichi relaxes, a little.

"Yamanaka, we need to return them to Konoha before we continue." Shoichi says, jumping the last couple of steps towards the shinobi.

Yamanaka jumps down from his low branch that from Shoichi's current position is completely obscured by a stupidly fluffy branch of leaves. He's frowning.

"This mission isn't urgent but it shouldn't be delayed either," Yamaka says, letting out a tense hiss before continuing. "There was something wrong with them. They didn't.. Feel right. I don't-" Shoichi raises an eyebrow, a Yamanaka, lacking the words to describe someone?

"We definitely need to get them back to Konoha, but we should go fast." Yamanaka glances at their enemies unconscious figures. "For multiple reasons."

The mission as a whole was scheduled to take between one and two weeks, depending on who the contact had sold information to. Travelling to the town he was usually stationed in would only take three days, and they were on the second.

"Chuugo, do you have any capture scrolls?" Shoichi asked, looking at the five. Unfortunately, neither Shoichi nor Yamanaka knew enough sealing to make one, and Shoichi would eat his exploding tags if Chuugo did.

"No, should I?"

"Nah, neither do I, it's not worth doing unless you're expecting to need them." Shoichi said, eyeing Chuugo. He wasn't particularly tall, but as a taijutsu specialised shinobi he would be able to carry at least one, but either way he'd be basically useless in a fight so he might as well carry two.

"I don't either," Yamanaka said, for nor reason since Shoichi already knew that. They had run missions together after all. "The scrolls are pretty expensive but they're good if you don't have a medic and someone's at risk of being seriously injured."

Chuugo looks interested in the new information but Shoichi is too busy worrying to pay much attention. Yamanaka was right, there is something wrong.

On first, second, and third glances they look like Iwa nin. Except. The sword that the kenjutsu user has is more popular in Kumo than Iwa. The tall man, the one who lasted the longest, is wearing a shirt with material found in Kiri.

There's nothing to be done about that though. Maybe they really are missing-nin, the kind of trash that doesn't even acknowledge their own village with a line through their hitai-ate. Or.

"Yamanaka, I want you to be on guard, you're right that something doesn't fit here. It might be a trap. I'll carry two, Chuugo, I want you to carry two, and Yamanaka, you take the back and let us know if they start to wake up." Technically, Yamanaka is the lead for the mission, but luckily he trusts Shoichi to know what he's doing.

"Alright, fine, let's get going." Yamanaka says, his nerves showing in the way he tightens his ponytail. Chuugo checks his pouch, a good habit that Shoichi had never quite mastered.

"Let's do this quickly, I don't want to risk them waking up. We'll need to go full speed and in eight hours Chuugo'll give them another dose." That'll make things dangerous if they do somehow wake up, but it's their best chance to get them back easily. Chuugo's unlikely to have enough of the knockout gas to last five people three days so they need to go fast.

"Is there somewhere we can call for backup?" Chuugo asks, looking uncertain as he and Yamanaka work together to get one of the assumed Iwa-nin over his shoulder.

"Not really," Yamanaka sighs, "the closest one is more than five hours away, and even if they did have shinobi to spare, going that way would be a bad idea. As you get closer to the border the chances of running into trouble increases. Besides, Sakurai and myself are more skilled than most of the shinobi on the border would likely be."

Shoichi lifts a shinobi onto each shoulder, his chakra automatically heping stabilise a little. Although they're both heavy, Shoichi is more worried about how awkward carrying two full sized adults is going to be when it comes to jumping through the trees. Great .

For three hours it's exactly as bad as he expected. He's in the lead, so it's his job to push stray branches off the path and to scout, which is difficult with a body on each shoulder blocking his view. The weight isn't impossible to manage, but it's not easy either. Shoichi isn't a taijutsu expert, and carrying twice his own weight is no mean feat. He's draining chakra to keep himself from wobbling or dropping them, and they had already been running for several hours before Yamanaka saw the sword.

Then things go from awkward to terrible, because that's how Shoichi's life goes.

"Warning!" Yamanaka shouts, with just enough time for Shoichi to think:

"?!" before the body on his right shoulder twitches and everything goes to hell.

His right arm gets pushed off and Shoichi hears a growl. He turns and finds that the young man with tanned skin and dark brown hair has become… something decidedly different. There's some sort of spreading tattoo that's crossing over the man's face, a simple circular pattern.

There is a brief moment of pause as the man looks around, the whites of his eyes dark. Shoichi hears Chuugo curse, followed by the sound of someone falling through roughage.

The body on his left shoulder twitches as well, but Shoichi is busy dodging the sword that the man is currently swinging at him. Shoichi's own sword is sealed, and wouldn't be much use anyway as he's still got his left hand around the body on his left shoulder.

That's going to make sealing hard too.

Shoichi jumps towards the man. He has a kunai in hand, and his leg out to kick the man in the head. The man dodges Shoichi's kick, but some of his chest length hair flutters down as the kunai scores his collar bone.

"Fuck you old man, that took forever to grow out!" The man growls, throwing himself at Shoichi with alarming speed. Shoichi ducks back. The sword hits a tree on the far side of the swing. The man yanks the sword out as Shoichi throws a hand of kunai at the man.

"What's goin' on Ikari?" A high, feminine voice next to Shoichi's ear asks. Shoichi throws her off his shoulder and jumps back. The man dodges the kunai, but his eyes are on the girl.

"Just some Konoha bitch, nothin' serious." The man, Ikari presumably, answers, throwing some shuriken with one hand, and swinging his sword with another. Shoichi glances at the girl, she too has the strange markings on her face and the visible parts of her right side. It's spreading, on both of them.

The chances that they're Iwa nin are low, maybe 30%. That said, if Konoha shinobi kill five special Iwa nin, there will be a war. The problem is that whoever these shinobi are, they aren't against killing him.

Shoichi dodges another sword swing. He jumps up, the girl's out of sight though and when he turns to look her armoured fist hits his cheek bone.

His vision goes blurry; the pain is rather distracting. Shoichi's kunai skewers the girl just below the red shirt darkens with blood as Shoichi pulls the kunai and stabs her again, hitting the bone this time.

"Ow." The girl spits blood, but she doesn't look alarmed or dead enough for Shoichi's peace of mind. The markings are almost fully across her face and Shoichi doesn't want to see what happens when they finish.

"Fire spear!" Shoichi shouts, too distracted to lower his voice. BoarHorseBoar. The girl jumps to the side but she stumbles slightly on the landing and the crackle of burning flesh makes Shoichi smile.

Anyone who's been a shinobi long enough knows not to fight a Konoha shinobi in a forest.

Shoichi turns to find the man, Ikari, again but as he turns he feels the iron cut his side. Shoichi jumps back again, feet finding branch again. A deep breath reassures him that his lungs are still fully functioning but the spike of aderaline is narrowing his vision.

Shoichi pulls out an exploding tag and attaches it to a kunai, throwing it next to Ikari with a pulse of chakra. Ikari jumps forwards, slashing his sword just a finger width away from Shoichi's chest as he jumps back again.

"Darting shadows!" A female voice shouts, followed by a wet cough. Shoichi glances around, but perhaps as expected the darker parts of the trees have become shadows. The whole thing is dizzying and Shoichi takes a moment to-

"Kai!" Yamanaka's voice shouts as his hand lands on Shoichi's shoulder. The fluxiation in chakra makes Shoichi's grasp on the branch slip and he falls down to a lower limb. The sound of Shoichi's exploding kunai fills the background.

"How's Chuugo doing?" Shoichi asks what he hopes is a shadow clone. Yamanaka lands next to him and shrugs,

"Not great, but we're managing. You looked like you needed some help though."

"I was doing fine until-" The girl and Ikari burst out the trees at the same time. The girl's hands are clasped together in preparation. Shoichi and Yamanaka jump away in seperate directions as a earth spear breaks through the leaves.

The girl follows Yamanaka.

Ikari has pulled out a kunai that he has in his left hand while he continues to hold his sword in his right. The markings on Ikari's face are completely covering him, but nothing more seems to be happening, thankfully .

For the next few minutes there is nothing more than dodging. Ikari isn't fantastic with his sword, but he's good enough that between that, his own blurry vision, and the pain whenever his side moves, Shoichi can't grab any of his kunai. That leaves him down to ninjutsu, of which he has limited chakra.

"Fire thread!" Shoichi winces at the pain in his side, but fire thread is one of the lowest chakra consuming elemental ninjutsu around. The fire loops around Ikari too slowly though and the man jumps up to the next layer of branches to avoid it. Shoichi keeps pushing chakra into, but draws it closer as he follows the man so it doesn't catch the trees on fire.

Fire thread works best as a surprise move but, even if a fight it works decently. When Shoichi jumps through the branches he can see Ikari running to help one of his fellows.

Shoichi pushes the thread forward, hissing out breath. The thread loops around his sword arm, pulling back and burning the skin.

"Oh fuck!" Ikari spins around, the fire thread pulling tighter. Shoichi pulls a poisoned senbon out the inner pocket of his pouch and darts under Ikari's swinging sword. The senbon goes through Ikari's neck, only stopping when it reaches the back his throat, hitting the spine.

"Phase two, fucker!" Ikari shouts, dropping his sword and drawing his hands into ram position. Ikari shudders.

Shoichi immediately grabs a kunai and stabs him repeatedly in the chest.

Ikari's face goes slack and he falls to the ground below. Shoichi follows after,

"Cremation!" Basically the only use of the jutsu is on the dead, it's not the fastest jutsu around, but if you get hit by it and you aren't dead-

Oh fuck. Shoichi was supposed to leave him alive, wasn't he. Damn. Shoichi turns and blows the blue flames into the trees, which instantly start to burn. Fuck .

Shoichi pulls out a body scroll and pulls it open, finally reaching the ground. If Ikari wasn't dead before, he sure is now. His skin is almost red and something that looks like horns have started to grow. His neck is broken though, from the landing. Shoichi dumps his body into the scroll and runs to join Chuugo and Yamanaka.

By the time he arrives, the fight has already ended.

Chuugo is dead. Yamanaka is injured, a kunai in on leg - self inflicted, and another in his shoulder. There's dirt covering them both, and only one of the supposed Iwa nin are still alive.

"Well." Shoichi sighs, looking at the clusterfuck, "we'll just have to pretend Konoha never saw them. Come on, let's load them up." Shoichi pulls out the same body scroll. You can fit up to 15 people in a body scroll, compared to the two-per for living scrolls it's a much better deal.

"I have a seperate one to put Chuugo in," Yamanaka says, sounding sad as he gently place the new chunin, barely more than a boy in. "He tried to be a hero." Shoichi nods sympathetically, clearly it didn't work out like the boy had hoped.

"That's probably a good idea," Shoichi nods, "they've done something freaky to themselves. We'll probably have to talk to T&I about that." Yamanaka nods, the other woman that Shoichi hadn't fought looks like she completely changed.

The only one still alive has been knocked out again, this time rather physically judging by the bloody stain on the back of his head.

"Should I carry him?" Yamanaka asks, nodding to him. Shoichi pauses, then nods.

"Yeah, if he wakes up again I can use fire thread. Oh- I started a fire down below. Do you have any earth jutsu?"

"Uh, one. It's not great though." Yamanaka winces, throwing the likely concussed enemy over his shoulder. Shoichi nods,

"I started using cremation before I remembered to store the body." One the advantages of creatmation is that it doesn't spread that much, as long as they don't leave it too long.

"Alright, let's go take care of that." Yamanaka says, frowning as he tucks Chuugo's scroll back in his vest.

When Shoichi finishes speaking with the Hokage, and visiting the hospital, his family are just starting to wake up. He kisses them each goodbye as they leave, and he pauses outside of Taro's door before going to bed.

Notes:

A/N:
Man that was a difficult chapter to write. I hate fight scenes, I really do. The other possible names for this chapter were '~Plot~' and 'Orochimaru makes creepy monsters'

1) Do you like fight scenes?
2) Do you prefer longer chapters like this one? Or the shorter style I used before?
3) Do you have any advice for writing fight scenes?

Chapter 47: Seals and School - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"There's something special about chakra." Sakura murmured, eyes glued to the glow of Hideo's hand. Asano made a noise of agreement, Hideo laughed.

"It's not that special," Hideo paused, looking at his own hand for a moment, "it feels like it at the beginning though. So enjoy the feeling while you can." Sakura shook her head,

"It's gonna feel like this forever." There was so much opportunity in that blue glow.

"Now remember, this is not, not, not, the same as your medical books 'mystic palm'. All I'm doing is channeling a lot of chakra to my hand to make it visible. Do not try to heal someone like this. In fact, don't try to heal anyone at all until you've been trained at the hospital and gotten approval. Medical chakra gone wrong is really dangerous." Hideo said, giving a pointed look at each of them.

Sakura stared at Hideo, doing her best to keep her face unamused. She knew that. Obviously.

"Duhhhh," Asano said, drawing it out long it enough it became funny, then awkward, and then funny again, "hhhhhhhhhhhhh." Sakura smirked.

"Alright, fine then, don't listen to your older brother, just trying to pass on some of his infinite wisdom to his younger sister and his adopted younger sister."

"You're a less than a full year older than me," Sakura pointed out, enjoying the look of exaggerated betrayal on Hideo's face.

"Come on Hideo, Ka-san's gonna call us in soon, hurry up." Asano pushed, a weird look on her face.

"Alright, so remember that if you start to get tired while channeling chakra, take a break for the rest of the day. I didn't know it when I started, but chakra exhaustion is really dangerous, and Asano," Hideo sent Asano a pointed look, "you'll be at a much higher risk from it. I'm serious here, you'd probably have to go to the hospital if you got it."

"Why is that?" Sakura asked, curious. She didn't know much about chakra exhaustion, there wasn't much about it in the book she'd found. (All of the books that talked about chakra beyond: "you'll learn about this in the academy" required a higher level of clearance than 'Academy Student'. Shame.)

"I'm not really sure? I know that chakra is a bit like blood, a bit like a muscle, and in certain situations you can get an addictive high from chakra exhaustion. For Asano, Ka-san warned me ages ago about it, in case she tried something like I did."

Sakura was not satisfied with that answer, for a number of reasons really. It sounded interesting to learn about, but also any risk to Asano needed to me looked into. Maybe she could make a jutsu using chakra exhaustion? (Someone else's chakra exhaustion, obviously.) Inner continued to ponder it while Sakura tried to focus on Hideo's speech.

"So to start learning to channel chakra, the easiest thing is to learn an easy jutsu. It seems weird, but jutsu are something that the academy has been sneakily teaching you how to do since you started, so it'll be nearly automatic to use chakra there. After that you have to try and find the feeling of chakra when you use it. That'll take a while…" Hideo trailed off for a moment, "I'll probably be a genin before you can do that consistently."

Sakura and Asano shared a look, they were, after all, very well motivated. Asano had finally started to get "feedback" on her seals. Not like, a person telling her things feedback, but something else. Sakura never really understood what Asano was going on about when she talked about it.

Hideo had been right, almost. Sakura successfully used the transformation jutsu three days after Hideo's graduation. Unfortunately he returned to the academy a week later, and only a few days after that, Asano successfully used the clone jutsu.

It was strange for both of them. Both Sakura and Asano had found learning things… easy. In general at least. Sakura was excellent at memorisation, and Asano usually only had to read over the explanation once and then work through a few questions before she had the topic mastered. (At least, as far as Sakura could tell. In all honesty, Asano could be staying up late at night to understand the work, and was just pretending to be as good as she was… That seemed unlikely though.)

After that, it had taken another month before Sakura could feel the chakra move inside her as she performed the transformation jutsu. It was a strange feeling. It was a bit like having a gulp of cold water on a hot day, when she could feel the water as it slid down her throat, cooling her body around it. That wasn't exactly right, though. Sakura tried to explain it to Asano, and failed. It just wasn't really something that could be explained. It was like trying to explain breathing .

Sakura found that meditating helped her find it, and oddly enough, so did exercising. She hadn't noticed at first, but during their morning runs (which Sakura would deny enjoying to her dying day!) she had started to feel a pulsing, beating thrum inside her, similar yet separate from the blood that made her face flush and body heat.

Asano still hadn't managed to find it though. She could use the clone jutsu, but she was struggling with feeling the chakra itself.

Hideo had suggested that Asano get help from their mother, since it was possible that her difficulties were an effect of all her other issues, Asano turned it down though.

Iruka-sensei started talking about darker topics at school. It was always in a light hearted way, and it felt to Sakura a bit like no one else noticed. Except… Asano definitely did. Sakura hadn't even noticed at first, as Iruka-sensei explained that someone could bite off their own tongue to commit suicide. It was gruesome, but Iruka-sensei had already gone over the places you stabbed to kill, and the places you stabbed to maim, and the places to stabbed to limit damage and so on. Asano though, her face had gone white and small beads of sweat had gathered on her hair line.

"I think Iruka-sensei is going to talk about getting captured by enemy combatants soon," Asano had mentioned off hand after class, and she was right. He had told them that suicide was an acceptable option, that telling the enemy classified information was not. He said that their families would get paid if they died honourably. (Asano had stiffened when he had said that shinobi who share secrets are considered missing-nin, no matter the cause, and that their families would be dishonored by this.)

It was after one such lesson that Asano started meditating, and when she shook Sakura out of her own revere, she was grinning.

"I got it." She said, "I got it, I got it, I got it!" Sakura smiled and congratulated her, all the while wondering why Asano had thought that she maybe hadn't 'gotten it'. If Asano didn't have chakra, she'd be dead . That was the whole point wasn't it? Asano's new doctor had said that most of the children who had died had stopped producing chakra because some reason or another. (Sakura had been rather distracted by the sport balls Asano had been throwing at her during the conversation.)

Most of the time, Sakura and Asano would meditate in a small grove of trees near a civilian playground. It was calm, and the forest kept the summer weather cooler. Hideo would always smile indulgently, as if he were ten years older, not just a few months, whenever he found them there. Sometimes his eyes would be soft, and had that sad, shiny look to them. Sakura suspected it had something to do with Taro, but didn't ask.

Asano didn't talk about Taro. As far as Sakura could tell, she didn't think about Taro either. Sakura had kept a lookout for the kind of 'troubling behaviour' Iruka-sensei had mentioned some shinobi developed. Asano didn't grow more quiet, even if Sakura sometimes wished she would. Asano didn't separate herself from her friend or family, to Sakura's great relief, and she hadn't shown any level of discontent with Konoha (or… any more than usual at least).

Sometimes, really late at night, when Sakura had gone too long without sleeping, she wondered if she'd imagined Taro.

In early August, Asano finally pulled out a seal and gave Sakura a conspiratorial look.

"Alright, I chose a beginner seal, so if it works it should make a small bit of water come out. If it goes wrong, it shouldn't go too badly wrong. Too much water, no water, or just dampness in the air if things go a little wrong. A small fire if things go really wrong, although I'm not sure how that would happen. That said, we're taking no risks!" Asano instructed, as if she was teaching a whole class instead of lecturing just Sakura, pausing briefly to cough into her elbow.

"You'll go hide behind those trees over there," Asano pointed to a small cluster of trees a serious distance away, Sakura wasn't even sure she'd be able to see if it worked from there. "I, on the other hand, will trigger the seal and then run like hell towards you. At this point we will wait, and watch for three to five minutes, depending on the results. Okay?"

"What if a fire starts? Should I just keep waiting for the 'three to five minutes'?" Sakura asked, it felt like a silly question, but Asano had been very clear that seals were super dangerous, so it was best to make sure.

"No, this is a one use seal, so once it does something it shouldn't do anything else. That said, if something does go very, very wrong, we'll need to go get a shinobi from the street." There was a small street near the park, but shinobi didn't tend to pass by that way. "If either of us are in danger then we need to call the ANBU, who will probably be able to get here fastest. But reserve that for serious health risks!" Sakura rolled her eyes, as if she'd ruin the privacy of the grove by allowing other shinobi to enter! (Unless Asano or her own lives were at risk, she didn't care about the grove that much.)

"Ready?" Sakura asked, holding back a smile at the way Asano seemed to be vibrating with excitement.

Instead of answering Asano moved towards the stump she had originally pointed out as her 'seal testing place' so many months ago and had, since then, worn down the jagged edges from whatever had caused the tree to fall originally. Asano placed the seal onto the stump, carefully pressing it down, although Sakura wasn't sure why Asano was treating it so delicately.

"Sakura," Asano sighed in exasperation, having glanced back. Sakura paused, then moved behind the cluster of trees. Asano nodded, and Sakura turned the 'okay' civilian sign. (The shinobi 'okay' sign was a high pitched whistle, since it was meant to be used when there weren't any enemy combatants left. Sakura didn't really want to draw any attention to their current… activity. Which, while not illegal or any such thing, would likely be frowned upon. Adults got oddly upset about being left ignorant of certain things, for some reason.)

Sakura watched carefully as Asano placed a hand on top of the seal. Asano's right hand was placed on the seal. Asano was turned away from Sakura, so all she saw after that was Asano running towards her. She slid around the edge of the trees where they both crouched.

After a moment, Sakura saw a few drops of water fall over the edge of the stump, although from her low position she couldn't really see the top, or the seal itself.

"How long do we need to wait for?" Sakura asked, since it looked to her as if the seal had worked perfectly.

"It's probably fine…" Asano hesitated, sounding worryingly unsure. "I think she should wait here for a minute anyway."

"Alright," Sakura agreed easily. Inner had already suggested an idea that her liked rather a lot. "Tell me the 'killer story' while we wait." Asano sent Sakura dubious look, then turned away to cough.

"Really? Why?"

"It's useful," Sakura said, ("It's hilarious," Inner echoed).

"Alright," Asano sighed, after a momentary pause she continued in a more dramatic 'storytelling voice'. "First, there was Etsuko, who stabbed a Iwa nin in the eye." In a deadpan tone she added, "It took the Iwa nin time to die." Sakura nodded, remembering the way that Iruka-sensei had drilled into them the idea that if you didn't get your weapon into the brain, they wouldn't die, and if you were too precise, they could survive even that.

"Then there was Niko, who was rather lazy and didn't want to deal with the extra struggle, so he stabbed his Kumo nin in the throat." Sakura wrinkled her nose, for all that Asano's story was pretty funny, it was also kinda gruesome. One by one, Asano went through and named all the 'deadly areas' that Iruka-sensei insisted they remember, as well as the effects such attacks had. (Cutting open someone's guts made everything smell like poop. Ew.)

"I really don't get why you like it," Asano said after she finished, resting her head on the bark behind her head.

"It's just. You say it in a way that is just so unconcerned!" Sakura giggled, "and anyway, it's funny to hear you describe Shikamaru stabbing someone's spine.

"So you like imagining our classmates messily murdering enemy shinobi?" Asano asked turning her head and raising an eyebrow.

"Alright, so you if you don't think it's funny then why did you make it ?"

"It's a study technique, obviously," Asano sighed, voice rough from coughing, "I remembers stories better than just plain facts." Sakura nodded with mock seriousness. "I got a 15 out of 40 on the latest history test!" Asano insisted.

Sakura paused. That was pretty low.

"It's my own fault too," Asano pouted, "I forgot which year Suna became recognised as a nation, and which day of March Kumo sent the 'red flag spies'." Sakura winced. The test hadn't been that hard, but if you didn't know the dates, you were basically guaranteed to fail it.

"Do you think you did okay on the hand signs test," Sakura asked in a sympathetic voice, alright knowing the answer. Asano smiled,

"Of course I did. Sensei said I did particularly well on Tiger, Boar, Ox, and Dog." Asano ran through them as she said it, and to Sakura's inexpert eye they did look pretty smooth. Sakura returned Asano's own small smile, those were the hand signs for the clone jutsu which Asano had been learning to use chakra with. She could probably do those in her sleep at this point, much like Sakura could do the Dog, Boar, and Ram for the transformation jutsu just as well.

"Do you think we'll actually get to do the jutsus in class soon?" Sakura asked, glancing curiously at the stump and seal which she'd mostly forgotten.

"Yeah, maybe. I think he'll make sure we can do all the hand signs properly first, did you see the way that the orphans barely knew them?" Asano asked, Sakura nodded, everyone had seen it. It had been kind of embarrassing actually. It's not like Asano or Sakura's parents had taught them how to do the seals, that had been all their own work. "Doing the hand signs wrong isn't as dangerous as messing up on seals or anything like that, but it can still be… not good."

"Even the 'Academy Three' are that dangerous?" That would be weird. All that had happened when Sakura had messed up on her transformation was she looked weird, or couldn't walk because she couldn't see her own feet or something like that.

"Eh… probably not," Asano said, standing up. "I imagine he's mostly trying to instill good habits and all that nonsense." Sakura knew first hand that Asano didn't really think it was nonsense, without saying anything they could agree that the next few Thursday 'ninjutsu' sessions at school were probably going to be quite boring.

Sakura followed Asano over to the stump. ("It looks exactly like it should," Inner pointed out, "why is she acting so weird about it?") Asano slowly, slowly, slowly moved to grab the wet seal, her whole body nearly thrumming with tension. Nothing happened though.

"Well I guess that worked perfectly." Asano said after a moment, 'I- I was honestly expecting something to go wrong. Huh. Cool." ("I still don't get," Inner said with a small sigh, barely bothering to even say it, "what temperature has to do with anything. Why is 'cool' a good thing when she prefers warm weather so much?")

In class it had become increasingly evident who had been training, and who had shinobi parents. Several of the clan children had bragged about already knowing jutsu (including Kiba and Sasuke, two people who Sakura had found herself comparing on an increasing basis). The most entertaining part of the day had been Asano's increasing annoyance with Naruto Uzumaki's (now) near daily proclamations of future Hokage-hood.

Then Asano snapped, and it was delicious to watch. Or, at least Sakura thought so.

It started with Iruka-sensei getting called into another room to deal with a fight. Naruto wasn't in class, but Shikamaru, Choji, and Kiba all where. The four of them had been missing lessons as group more regularly recently, but Naruto was only in class around half the time these days. After a few minutes Iruka-sensei tossed Naruto into the classroom and slammed the door closed behind him. This left Naruto alone at the front of the class while Sensei continued to deal with the trouble in the hallway.

Sasuke often got in fights with Naruto, usually because Naruto started it, but this time it seemed that Sasuke hadn't been able to hold himself back. (Not that Sakura could blame him, if she hadn't known Asano would give her the Eyes of Disappointment, she might've been tempted herself.)

"Hey Dobe-"

"Who you calling DOBE?!"

"-I get you can't reach your desk without touching the ground."

That had, admittedly, not been what Sakura had been expecting. Usually Sasuke's responses were limited to dismissive insults or just kind of… beating Naruto up in taijutsu.

"I TOTALLY CAN! You- You- Teme!"

"Teme?" Sasuke murmured quietly, sounding offended. Naruto meanwhile, had backed up to the front wall with the chalkboard before launching himself forward in a quick run, jumping at the edge of the first desk. He jumped a surprising distance, but clearly hadn't planned very well considering that he had jumped from the floor, to the floor, and had missed his desk by several rows.

"Dobe." Sasuke repeated. Naruto, clearly take a ridiculous amount of offense to this statement stuck his tongue out.

"I bet you can't do any better!"

"Sit. Down. Uzumaki." Iruka-sensei's voice made everyone jump as they turned to see him standing in the open doorway. Sakura noticed Asano shuddering slightly, probably at the way someone had entered the room without a single person noticing.

The next day, Iruka-sensei was a little late, as he tended to be on Thursday mornings, and Naruto was arguing with Kiba that he would be Hokage.

Asano snapped.

Sakura didn't see the moment it happened, unfortunately, but she did see as Asano stood up.

"Naruto!" Asano's shout was not particularly commanding, given that it was rather gravely from her recent cough.

"What?!" That wasn't much a problem though, since Naruto would fight with anyone .

"You keep saying you're gonna be Hokage-"

"I am gonna be Hokage!"

"But you're wasting your damn time in this goddamn motherfucking boring-as-fuck classroom -" Everyone stared as Asano went from speaking perfectly comprehensible Japanese to absolute nonsense mid-sentence. "Ahem. Sorry. You have something like six clan heirs in this singular classroom! You don't become Hokage just by being strong - a ton of shinobi are strong ! You need to be respected! Smart! Charismatic!" Asano's breath ran out, forcing her to pause for air.

"I honestly believe you will become Hokage," Asano said, far more calmly than before, "but you aren't showing me someone I want to have as Hokage right now." Asano sat back down, seemingly ignoring the fact that everyone was staring at her. Including Iruka-sensei who was standing in the doorway.

"Alright class, settle down," he said after a moment to the dead silent room. Naruto moved to his seat without a word, and Akamaru tugged on the frozen Kiba until he sat.

"Today we're going to be talking a bit about chakra, and I'd like to remind you all that the Hokage will be coming to visit our class for the day next week…"

Notes:

A/N:

This chapter starts before chapter 45, which is why part of it is in italics.

1) What is a trope that you love?
2) What is a trope that hate?
3) Which character (including fanfics and canon) do you think would be a good Hokage?

Chapter 48: Judgement Week - Neutral

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Academy Student Review:

Name: Asano Sakurai

Date of Birth: October 10th

Family Type: Shinobi

Bloodline: Non-user Mokuton

Jutsu Type: Genjutsu, Ninjutsu

Summary:

Sakurai shows signs of prodigy level high intelligence and possibly equal levels of motivation. (This has been debated based on reasoning.) Sakurai achieves ten of the fifteen requirements to allow for early graduation. However she has significant physical restraints with a classroom attendance sometimes reaching as low as 75% during the winter term.

Sakurai is not recommended for early graduation due to: low class ranking (50th percentile); lack of respect for authority ; strong relationships within age group; average taijutsu skill for age group; recent family loss (possible signs of mourning related bad judgement).

Low class ranking may be manufactured, but surveillance has not provided a clear answer either way. Sakurai shows signs of boredom in most lessons but seems highly stressed during testing. Sakurai does not review information covered in class independently, instead focusing on individual work.

Sakurai has a close relationship with classmate, Sakura Haruno. (Haruno: shinobi raised, no bloodline, genjutsu and taijutsu.) Sakurai and Haruno are not recommended teammates, Haruno shows signs of possible obsession around Sakurai's weak health. Haruno has been marked as possible jonin level, but would be at risk of holding herself back for Sakurai's sake. Sakurai is similarly invested in Haruno and sometimes shows signs of being a parental figure, likely due to Sakurai's advanced maturity.

Sakurai and Haruno work together on individual work, Haruno's work has been summarized in her file. Sakurai has independently succeeded at using clone jutsu, this seems to have been driven by the goal of conscious chakra use as Sakurai now focuses on seal work . Sakurai seems highly protective of an unrecorded book on seal work which she carries with her during the day and keeps under her pillow at night.

Sakurai is moderately isolated against her other classmates, although there was a recent incident with Naruto Uzumaki (classified, classified, taijutsu and ninjutsu), the details of which are unknown. Shikamaru Nara (clan raised, Shadow Yin Release, ninjutsu and genjutsu) shows signs of aversion towards Sakurai, even going so far as to shudder once upon seeing her. The reason for this is unknown. Sakurai seems to have high levels of emotional intelligence and when necessary can be very social.

Sakurai shares a moderately close relationship with her family. Sakurai's sister, Kimiko Sakurai (shinobi raised, non-user Mokuton, civilian) shares a bed with Sakurai (since disappearance of Taro Sakurai (shinobi raised, none, taijutsu and genjutsu)). Kimiko Sakurai appears to view Sakurai as a parental figure and high very high levels of respect for her sister.

Hideo Sakurai (shinobi raised, Mokuton, taijutsu and ninjutsu) shows implicit respect towards Sakurai, particularly in intellectual conversation but still views himself as the more mature of the two. Shoichi Sakurai (classified shinobi) shows a strong parental relationship with Sakurai, and is considered highly biased.

Yoko Sakurai (classified shinobi) is highly careful around Sakurai although the reason is unknown (possible favouritism). Yohei Sakurai (classified shinobi) has a distant relationship with Sakurai, largely due to Yohei Sakurai's awkward behaviour but also because Sakurai seems to avoid him. The reason for this is unknown but possibly linked to Sakurai's inability to use the Mokuton caused by her injuries during the Kyuubi Attack.

None of her family show any signs of fear or anger towards Sakurai.

Sakurai's seal work shows close attention to detail and ability to focus on a single project for extended periods of time. Precautions are taken every time a seal is activated and is not considered a serious risk to herself during independent work.

There is a risk that Sakurai's health with get significantly worse when her chakra pools increase during puberty, the effects of which are unknown. (Reference to 'Kyuubi Attack File: 2034')

Recommendation:

High stress testing

Regular health testing

Sealing master sensei

Authority training

Flexibility or low impact based taijutsu style - weaponry?

Prodigy risk testing - continued

Ranking:

Genin: Approved. Sakurai has close relations within Konoha that she shows devotion to protecting.

Chunin: Approved. Sakurai already shows signs of leadership capability and high levels of maturity.

Tokubetsu : Conditional. Sakurai's condition may be improved with high level medical help which could allow her to reach a high level of skill in certain levels and her work in sealing could fill a gap .

Jonin: Conditional. Sakurai is unlikely to achieve jonin level, however it depends on the level of medical work she requires and recieves.

ANBU: Denied. Sakurai's health requires regular breaks and sleep. Even low level ANBU training could cause severe physical damage.

Side Notes:

The Uzumaki incident: (Umino was out of the room at the time.) This has led to Uzumaki purposefully provoking Sakurai, Sakurai appears to be attempting to train Uzumaki into better behaviour. (Offering lunch for a polite introduction; sharing conversation after several minutes of quiet work at the library; leaving the conversation after repeated unwanted inquires towards a 'date'.) - Sakurai does not show any fear or anger towards Uzumaki for anything other than his behaviour but prefers the quiet.

Shikamaru Nara: Nara does not show signs of fear or anger towards Sakurai. Nara's reactions indicate disgust and discomfort, however Nara's closest friend, Choji Akimichi (clan raised, Physical Manipulation - Weight/Size, taijutsu, ninjutsu) seems friendly with Sakurai and Haruno. This needs further information but should not prevent the advancement of Sakurai at this point. [Flagged]

Bullying: Nao (Sakurai's previous sensei) recorded the bullying incident (Reference to Asano Sakurai file: 5), said bully: Ami (shinobi born - orphan raised, none, academy trained civilian), shows signs of anger and fear towards Sakurai. This is likely caused by said incident and should not prevent the advancement of Sakurai.

Sealing Book Book was reviewed during Sakurai's morning exercise routine. It was made using Konoha paper and ink, Sakurai is not considered a sleeper risk . Seal book does not contain an references to its writer but work contained is of a medium high quality, likely a high level sealing apprentice. Seal work style was dated back to early in the Sandaime Hokage's first reign.

Unofficial Notes:

[Handwritten]

Sakurai is sarcastic little shit and laughs at her own jokes. A bit of an aggressively mothering type, particularly when she dislikes someone's future plans.

Name: Sakura Haruno

Date of Birth: 28th March

Family Type: Shinobi

Bloodline: None

Jutsu Type: Genjutsu, Taijutsu

Summary:

Haruno shows signs of high intelligence and willingness to improve. Haruno achieves a 75th percentile grade on average (although this is rising with her increasing independant taijutsu training). Haruno qualifies for a few of the early graduation requirements but is largely on par with her age group.

Haruno has low chakra levels, likely caused by her non-clan heritage. Haruno also shows interest in medicine (as part of her close relationship with Asano Sakurai (shinobi raised, non-user Mokuton, ninjutsu and genjutsu)) and possesses an unrecorded medical/biological textbook.

Haruno spends most of her time on independent work in tandem with Sakurai. Sakurai's independent work has been recorded in her file. Haruno has managed to use transformation jutsu from independent study, however her focus seems to be on conscious chakra use. Haruno enjoys using chakra which may allow her to build her chakra level. Most Haruno's focus seems to be on medical learning and taijutsu practice, both from scrolls and textbooks.

Haruno has had limited personal training and shows a strong ability to learn from the written word .

Haruno has a distant but friendly relationship with most of her peers. Haruno has a very close and exclusive friendship with Sakurai which she shows no signs of wanting to expand, but occasionally works or chats with her peers, particularly when Sakurai is unavailable. Haruno is moderately socially awkward, but shows signs of emotional intelligence and ability (although not the inclination) towards conflict de-escalation.

Haruno has a distant relationship with her parents due to their regular absence. The extent of this is unknown as Kizashi Haruno (classified shinobi) and Mebuki Haruno (classified shinobi) were away for the extent of Student Review Week. Haruno shows signs of love towards both parental figures but Sakurai shows significant aggression and disapproval which Haruno implicitly agreed with. This is not currently a concern but should be reviewed before Haruno's chunin promotion.

Haruno has an extremely distant relationship with her extended family as her maternal grandfather lives outside of Konoha and her paternal grandparents do not approve of their son's shinobi activities or marriage.

Haruno has a friendly relationship with her neighbours and local merchants, and enjoys visiting the East Konoha gardens, particularly when Sakurai is unavailable.

Recommendation:

Chakra training

Medical training

Eventual light interrogation on topic of medical/biological textbook

Chakra theory course upon chunin promotion

Skilled chakra user sensei

Ranking:

Genin: Approved. Haruno has a close relationship to Sakurai Konoha that she shows devotion to protecting. Haruno also shows signs of affection of Konoha as a whole and a belief in the Will of Fire.

Chunin: Approved. Haruno shows signs of good tactical decision skills and willingness to improve.

Tokubetsu : Approved. Particularly if Haruno pursues a medical path her combative personality and improving taijutsu skill may allow her to be achieve a medical promotion.

Jonin: Conditional. Haruno's (possibly dangerously) codependent relationship with Sakurai would need to improve before promotion. Haruno's medical/biological book is also a concern. Haruno's low chakra level would need to increase to pass on ninjutsu.

ANBU: Conditional. Should Sakurai die, Haruno could be well suited to a 2-4 year ANBU contract. Haruno would not be well suited to ANBU leadership or long term work at this point.

Side Notes:

Medical/Biological textbook: Appears to be co-written although authors are unknown. One of the authors focuses more on intellectual exercises and classified genetics work already recorded in Konoha's records, particularly those referring to clan bloodlines. (Reference to medical files: Uchiha File: 9038, Akimichi File: 1702, Hyuuga File: 6321 among others.) Second author focuses on medical techniques dating back to early Sandaime Hokage/late Shodai Hokage. Haruno is considered a low sleeper risk. There was lingering chakra on the textbook and when the book left the line of sight it became difficult to focus on it. [Flagged]

(More information in Unrecorded Information File: 192321)

Bullying: Haruno's previous difficulty with bullying was previously recorded. (Reference Sakura Haruno File: 3) Haruno does not show dangerous levels of aggression or resentment towards Ami (shinobi born - orphan raised, none, academy trained civilian).

Unofficial Notes:

[Handwritten]

Haruno uses various level of 'friendly' punches to show annoyance, but it otherwise quick to forgive.

Notes:

Alright, I'm really busy right now, so I'll update when I can. Sorry about that.

Judgement week as a chapter has been re-written half a dozen times so if anything is unclear please ask me about it.

Also, comments make me very happy 3 so thank you to all of you who have commented!

Chapter 49: Growing Up - Hideo

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Hideo paused at the entryway, enjoying the soothing, quiet hum of the house. Kimiko's humming drifted from the kitchen, working through her Academy homework. Hideo's lips twitched at the thought. Kimiko was thriving on the classwork in a way that no one else Hideo knew had. She often asked him to read over her work - though only when Asano wasn't available - and it was far better than his own work had been at that age. More work had been put into it that Asano or Taro ever had, even if Kimiko didn't have the same spark of genius as their siblings. It was nice to see someone enjoy the written work.

He couldn't hear Asano, but he could feel the gentle thrum of her chakra nearby, almost overlapping with Sakura's quieter but must stronger chakra, as per usual. They were probably in Asano's room. He'd need to go remind Asano that Sakura needed time to do her homework, even if Asano didn't. (Hideo would easily admit jealousy to the way that Asano could do her homework on the trajectory of a kunai - useless knowledge that it was - in less than 10 minutes, while Hideo needed an hour and the help of Ka-san or Asano at least once.)

Ka-san was probably in the house, but Hideo let himself pout a bit as he failed to detect even her lack of presence, if he hadn't known her routine he would think that Kimiko, Sakura, and Asano were the only ones home. As he was, Ka-san and Oji-san were both hidden from his growing chakra sense, although Oji-san was often on missions, so he might genuinely be gone.

Tomorrow he would be meeting his new sensei tomorrow, having passed his second graduation exam. Nerves made his chakra rub against his chest like the itchy wool Tou-san wore in winter, making his stomach ache slightly. He wanted to a shinobi so badly . He wanted to learn interesting jutsu, make Ka-san smile with his mokuton, make Asano hug him tightly in her silent congratulations. Hideo wanted so badly.

Instead of expressing this, he took a deep breath, let the want run through his body, and did his best to let it go. Oji-san said that meditation and emotional control were two of the most undervalued skills of good shinobi, and Asano agreed. (It was funny, Oji-san and Asano seemed to almost avoid each other, but they agreed on rather a lot.) It often felt like Asano was better at being a shinobi than Hideo was, despite the fact that she was a year a half younger.

Hideo slipped into the house, sliding off his shoes. Normally he would go and throw himself at Kimiko before helping Ka-san with dinner, but tonight he just wanted to think. He paused on the hallway outside of Taro's room. Before, when he felt like this, he would go sit with Taro, or pull him away to go outside.

Taro, who was so lazy and unwilling, but would always make time to join Hideo at the park, although he would always complain about being 'forced to supervise'. Hideo knew that wasn't true. Konoha being as safe as it was meant that children were allowed to run on their own. No one was willing to make trouble, especially when the Uchiha police force had been available on every street corner.

It had been Tou-san who had introduced Hideo to the wonder of reading, but it had been Taro who had done the most to help him to read. Ka-san had taught him hiragana and katakana, of course, but it had been Taro who had helped him read his first kanji. Who had read him more advanced books even when Taro himself would have prefered to play a board game, or lay around thinking.

It had already been more than a year since Taro had disappeared.

Hideo was almost as old as Taro had been when he had disappeared, Taro having passed his sensei's test the first time he graduated. Unlike Hideo. (It was embarrassing, but over all, Hideo actually felt rather thankful. He felt more prepared than he had just six months ago. He knew his remaining classmates a lot better too. This time around, Hideo felt a lot better about his chances. Maybe he would even pass the chunin exams on his first try!)

The urge to ask Taro for advice washes over Hideo, drowning him in want . He can see it in his head, opening Taro's door. Seeing Taro, laying on his bed, eyes closed. He would probably be asleep, but he never got that upset when Hideo woke him up. Hideo would throw himself on top, making Taro grunt and toss him onto the floor in annoyance.

Hideo would ask about being a 'real shinobi' and Taro would sigh, and roll towards his window. After a moment he would start to talk though, while Hideo sat patiently at the foot of his bed, soaking up his brother's wisdom. Then Hideo would ask the questions he knew Taro wouldn't know the answer to, like what his teammates' dreams for the future were, or when their birthday was. Taro would groan about 'useless information', since he was bad at understanding why the details of people's lives mattered.

Laughter from Asano's bedroom breaks Hideo out of his revere, away from the ever so tempting dream of Taro, home and alive.

Hideo allows himself one last glance at Taro's door, the sunlight peeking out as if highlighting it, and the emptiness that lays inside. He swallows a lump in his throat and tries to remember if any of his friends are available. Unlike Sakura however, most of Hideo's friends have parents who are in the village most, if not all of the time. His friends from shinobi families often had 'family training' in the evening, or other family events.

Years ago, so long ago Hideo could barely remember, before Kimiko was born, Ka-san used to take all three of them to the local park. They would stretch and play active games like hide-and-seek or Asano's (very strange) version of the ninja game.

Ever since Kimiko was born and Ka-san started using a wheelchair, they stopped doing that. When Hideo had started the Academy, Ka-san had taught him a few things about taijutsu, but that was all. Sometimes Hideo wondered if he had imagined the Ka-san from his childhood. In many ways, she seemed very different. Now she spends her time cooking and doing paperwork, spread all over the kitchen table. (He can't quite remember what she was like before, just that she was… different.)

He was being silly, of course she would be different, it had been years!

Hideo shrugged off his melancholy mood and hurried into his bedroom so he could start to plan his outfit for tomorrow - the outfit he would wear the first time he met his jounin-sensei!

Sometimes when Asano was starting to recover from one illness or another she would wander around the house, lonely from being stuck in her bed all the time. Often she would end up on Hideo's bed while Hideo himself was busy doing sometimes else - homework, reading, or practicing throwing kunai at the target Ka-san had helped him set up. It was nice, to enjoy some time with his strange sister.

Hideo hesitated over his shirts - something bright to stand out? Or something more discrete, like he would wear for a mission?

Asano could be talkative when she had too much time on her own, as if all her thoughts had filled up her brain and just had to be let out. Usually it was worth just letting her ramble for half an hour or so, before he even tried to respond. Others though, when she was still sick enough that she should've been in bed, she would lay, pale and still on Hideo's bed. Sometimes she would even close her eyes, and just listen to him talk about what Mura or Kuma had done recently, or some other inanity of his daily life.

At some point Hideo would crawl into bed with her, if he didn't have anywhere he needed to be, and allow Asano to bask in his warmth. (Asano had always adored physical contact, ever since she was a baby, but only if was on her terms. If you came to give her a hug she would run away, but given the choice, her chakra would always purr happily at hugs and cuddles.) Asano always ran cold too, so she would wrap her arms and legs around him like an octopus and Hideo would be forced to allow her freezing toes to steal his natural warmth.

Hideo settled on a more neutral shirt with mesh underneath, since some jonin performed the test as soon as teams were assigned and it wouldn't due to be caught unprepared. Again. Maybe some darker bottoms, to offset the lighter top? Or would that just emphasis how washed out he looked, since his hair and skin were too close in shade?

"Are you obsessing over clothes again?" Asano asked from the door, looking bemused. "Ka-san wanted me to tell you it's time for dinner."

"Oh right," Hideo smiled, glad that Asano was looking less pale than she had a few days ago. He hadn't realised that she and Sakura were unaware of the fact that you could spend chakra while also failing to use it. It was, he supposed, a strange concept. Asano's non-stop attempts to meditate or manipulate chakra had pushed her to the edge of chakra exhaustion. He was glad that Sakura had noticed she was looking off and had told him about it.

By the time Hideo had arrived at their little grove, the same place that Hideo had first learned to use the mokuton, Asano had been feverish and her fingertips had the stiff icy feeling that had him glancing towards the hospital. Ultimately though, she was still conscious and had been able to walk home of her own accord so he had let her sleep it off. He'd probably let her start trying to use chakra again within a few days, since her chakra was feeling pretty decent at the moment. (Although Hide could tell both from her voice and chakra that she had a cold.)

Hideo put his clothes to the side, standing and stretching with yawn. Asano darted forward to tickle his exposed stomach. Forcing him to jump back, falling onto his bed and grabbing her arm to pull her down along with him.

"If you don't let me up I'm gonna sneeze on you," Asano threatened, failing to sound even remotely threatening. Hideo grinned, and began tickling her with a childish determination.

"You-" Asano yelped, "SUCK!"

After another moment Hideo stopped, now aware that he was actually kinda hungry. Asano jumped back, giving him a look of annoyance. Hideo could hear the amused notes in her chakra that meant that she wasn't actually annoyed at all though.

In the kitchen Sakura was humming as she passed the plates around the table and Kimiko was gathering her books to put to the side. Asano reach up to Hideo's neck and pinched the back of his shirt,

"Look at what I found!" She said grinning as she'd just cashed the bounty on a S-rank nin. Hideo didn't bother to hold back the fond smile as he glanced down at his little sister.

"Alright, that's enough, sit down you two." Ka-san said, rolling into her place at the head of the table with a pointed look. Sakura and Kimiko both slipped into their own seats and Hideo glanced around. Tou-san, Oji-san, and Tar- Tou-san and Oji-san were both missing, but that wasn't too uncommon.

Dinner was lively in a way it rarely was when Oji-san was there, and Hideo enjoyed glances he and Kimiko shared over their sibling's antics. Ka-san made sure they all ate their vegetables, and Sakura made sure to add more to Asano's plate when she wasn't looking, which was hilarious to all involved as Asano tried to figure out why the amount of food on her plate didn't decrease as she ate.

"I-I have an announcement." Kimiko stuttered, flushing as she moved her attention down to her plate. "I don't want to be a shinobi."

Hideo glanced at Ka-san, who would, without a doubt be the biggest problem. Ka-san looked at Kimiko with that look. The look that felt as if it knew you to the deepest depths of your soul, and had found you wanting.

"And what will you do instead?" Ka-san asked after a long, painful pause.

"I'm not sure." Kimiko admitted, fidgeting with the bandages wrapped around her lower arm. "Kyo goes to a civilian academic school and Sora is planning on going into a trade. And Sora's mom said that she'd help me get an apprenticeship if I wanted!"

"Have you thought about it. A lot?" Asano asked, drawing the attention to herself. There was a change in the tension. Kimiko looked up to Asano. A lot. Ka-san hadn't been very well when Kimiko was little, and Asano had spent a lot of time looking after her. Hideo often wondered if Asano was aware of how much of an impact she'd had on their younger sister.

"I have," Kimiko said, glancing up for only a split second. "I don't want to hurt people. And- And I know that some people have to- to keep everyone safe. But I don't want to."

"You're only eight Kimi, if you drop out now you'll probably not have another chance to join. Are you sure you'll never want to be a shinobi?" Asano asked, eyes trained on Kimiko and voice serious. Hideo wondered how Ka-san felt about this, it was impossible to tell from looking at their mother's stoney face.

Sometimes, like right now, Asano felt impossibly older.

"I'm sure." Kimiko nodded. When she glanced up, Asano smiled and nodded back.

"Then I'll support you on it." Then they both looked at Ka-san, who raised an elegant eyebrow at Asano before looking back to Kimiko.

"You will stay in the Academy for at least the rest of the year. If you can place in the top five even after you start physical education then I'll consider it. I'll have to speak to your Tou-san about this. I expect you to keep your grades up and to start deciding on where you would like to transfer to." Then Ka-san turned back to her plate and the conversation was decidedly over.

Notes:

A/N:

Yes. I know. I need to make a timeline. If you haven't noticed, the time frame for these past few chapters has been jumping around a bit. Sorry about that. Does anyone have any recommendations for timeline writing software?

Questions!
1) Do you enjoy the variety of point of views and want more one offs/new POVs or do you prefer when I stick to the same ones?
2) How do you feel about Kimiko's decision?
3) Would you be interested to read more about Hideo/Kimiko/Asano/Taro's interactions as kids? I kinda skipped over it and I now realise that there's a lot of character development stuff there.

Chapter 50: Graduation - Iruka

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Iruka was kind of a mess during the last term with his first class, and had never been so glad that his students still weren't old enough to be aware that their teachers were actually people and therefore wouldn't notice. He was so proud of them, having seen them all grown so much in the past few years, and he was so sad they were leaving, and he was so glad he wouldn't have to teach them through puberty.

He was a mess.

The last term was both more, and less busy that every previous term. On one hand, he'd finished covering all of the content for the paper exam and taijutsu exam, on the other hand, he hadn't been allowed to start teaching ninjutsu until the last term, and he wasn't sure how long it would take everyone to learn it. As such, he'd scheduled the last days in three sections. The first was two hours of taijutsu, then a break, then two hours to review academic work, then lunch, before ending on two hours of ninjutsu. Hopefully that would allow students who overestimated their chakra levels to avoid missing lessons when they over extended themselves.

The remaining students were, of course, limited to those who were thought to be capable of learning the ninjutsu. Students who weren't weren't focused in ninjutsu were allowed a lower ranking in that area, same with taijutsu and academics (lining up with genjutsu, for some reason), so over all he wasn't too worried about the class. With one exception.

Naruto Uzumaki.

Iruka wasn't glad to be teaching him, by any stretch, but he did his best to treat Naruto like any other student. Unfortunately, Naruto skipped lessons with his friends but lacked his friends parents who helped them avoid falling behind. Worse yet, Naruto was a ninjutsu/taijutsu type and was… honestly quite weak in both. His stamina was his biggest strength in both, but he lacked any refinement and refused to listen to any help.

Iruka ran a hand over his face, taking a deep breath before nodding to the Hokage's current assistant, Tomoe. Tomoe gave a bright smile, making a dark flush rise against his will. After a brief pause Iruka pushed his way into the Hokage's office and smiled when he saw the shogi board sitting on the desk.

"Hello Iruka, how are you today?" The Hokage asked, taking a slow breath through his pipe.

"I'm well today, Hokage-sama, how are you? The paperwork isn't bogging you down too much for a game today?"

"Between you and me, the paperwork is going to have to take a break whether there is time or not." The exchange was not an unusual one, but the weariness with which the Hokage said it made Iruka pause. The Hokage had always been old, in Iruka's earliest memories the Professor (known to the younger generation as "Grandfather Hokage") had already been well into his late 50s. Iruka met with the Hokage regularly, as a fair number of the orphaned shinobi did, but in recent year… Iruka had started to worry for him.

Iruka sat slowly, thinking over the shogi game that was already in process. It was rare for them to finish a game in the hour or so they met, which Iruka was rather thankful for, since it gave him more time to think. The Hokage still won of course, but the margin had been slowly decreasing ever since their first game and it was now 5-200, in favour of the Hokage. Three of the wins had happened in the past six months.

For a few minutes Iruka and the Hokage played in silence, enjoying the quiet company. Eventually though the Hokage put his pipe to the side and looked at Iruka with his piercing gaze.

"How is you class doing?"

Iruka thought about it for a moment, assembling this thoughts as clearly as possible.

"They're mostly on track. Sasuke and Shino are the furthest ahead. Naruto is the furthest behind - I'm starting to get rather worried about him. Asano and Sakura… I know you told me you had it under control, but," Iruka rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the ridge of his scar. "Sakura tied in a taijutsu fight against Ino yesterday and they both already know how use chakra to the point that they're nearly on par with Shino."

The Hokage hummed slowly, and Iruka turned back to the game while the Hokage through about Iruka's words. Iruka was pretty sure the Hokage had won the game, but their games were much more about fun than winning, so he wasn't particularly upset.

"Here are the current teams," the Hokage said after a minute, passing a file from the stack on his desk. Iruka opened it started to scowl as he started to understand it.

"This is incredibly unbalanced." Iruka said slowly, "Sasuke and Sakura on the same team? They're the top for their respective genders at ninjutsu right now. Hinata and Shino on the same team? Etsuko and Ayato? There's no way they'll pass the jounin if they're paired together, to put them with Asano would be a waste of her talent!"

"I know," the Hokage sighed, "it's all politics. Naruto and Sasuke are clearly going to be bottom and top of the class respectively, so they'll be the next Team 7. They need someone who'll be able to keep up. I would've put them with Hinata, except the Hyuuga, Aburame, and Inuzuka have put pressure to pair them up as a strong team to contrast InoShikaCho. Normally they would be fine with a clan member and a civilian or orphan student getting paired up, but this whole class is full of head family members."

Iruka paused. He'd been warned when he started that this class could ruin him because of the high tensions between clans. Not for the first time he was reminded of the great honour, and the great pressure he was under to make sure they succeeded.

"What about these teams though?" He asked after a minute, gesturing the civilian, orphan, and non-clan shinobi children. Sakura and Naruto were the only non-clan children, and even Naruto had the Uzumaki name behind him, despite his unknown heritage.

"I don't think we can expect them to all pass." The Hokage said, "hopefully they'll all come back and sit through another term and pass with the following class."

Iruka thought about it for a moment. Most of the non-clan students would definitely benefit from another six months of Academy work. Especially if they could have a term without the clan students getting all of the attention. (Mizuki was a good friend, but was not without his flaws.)

"It would be a waste of time for Asano, for sure."

"Yes, you did recommend her for early graduation." The Hokage agreed with a slow nod. Iruka had been clear in his opinion that Asano got nothing out of his lessons that she wouldn't learn faster independently, and there was never much of a chance that she would be teamed with Sakura anyway. Her attendance had been improving each year and at this point she only missed a few weeks each year anyway, a small enough time that she could be treated much the same as Hayate with a few days off after each longer mission.

"I did, and I still stand by that." Iruka didn't say that he was worried about the effect Asano had on Sakura. He worried that Asano was too much like Itachi, that if she'd been a little bit stronger physically, or born in a clan that she would've been exactly like him. He didn't say that he still remembered seeing Itachi join their class, all of six years old. He didn't say that they had the same thousand yard stare that was far too similar to that of Kakashi "friend killer" Hatake.

"What do you think the arrangement should be then?"

"I think Fuuga will graduate, you have a note here that you don't expect it, but I think he will. He'll still benefit from another six months in the Academy though, so we'll pair him with Etusko and Ayato. I don't expect they'll pass the first time, but they could make a good team, especially if Ayato can get someone to teach him kenjutsu."

"And Asano?"

"Give her an apprenticeship. That way she can move at her own pace when she's healthy and avoid holding her teammates back when she's sick." So she doesn't kill her teammates. So less people suffer when she breaks. So the damage is contained.

"I can't place her in an apprenticeship. A sickly shinobi-raised girl? No, that would be folly. But-" The Hokage paused, giving Iruka the chance to notice that if he didn't move his silver general right now he was going to lose much sooner than expected. "Do you know anything about the class beneath yours?"

"Not really," Iruka admitted, not glancing up from his inspection of the board, "it's incredibly small, less than 15 students and is probably going to be combined with the term below."

The Hokage made a twitching gesture with his hand and a moment later there was a knock at the door.

"Here are the files you requested sir," Tomoe said, handing a thick stack of files across the desk before leaving again. The Hokage immediately started flicking through them.

"I'm reluctant to separate Asano too much from her peer group. She is so far ahead of her peer group, I don't think placing her with an even younger team will help." The Hokage glanced away from one of manila folders and moved his pawn, "but, perhaps she could be placed on a team which has lost a member."

"An older team will more physically advanced," Iruka warned despite the fact that the Hokage had likely already thought of that.

"You said her taijutsu score had gone up."

"It has," Iruka assured, "she's slightly above the class average for taijutsu."

"Then that's that." The Hokage said, nodding decisively, "I'll forward that back to Inoichi for inspection." He closed one of the files, moving to a different pile.

"I resign," Iruka admits with good humour after another moment. The Hokage would have him in checkmate within a few moves anyway, and it would be nice to start a new game next time.

"We'll meet for longer next time, Iruka," the Hokage said with a soft smile, "things are just very busy right now."

Iruka smiled as he bowed and tried not to show how that chilled him to his core. No, things were not busy right now. They'd had a very peaceful year so far, but the Hokage was becoming less able. Iruka was acutely aware that there had yet to be a Hokage who hadn't died in battle.

"Team Seven is Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha." Iruka glanced up from his list to see Naruto's look of outrage.

"How does an awesome shinobi like me end up on a team with a guy like him ?!" Naruto shouted, pointing at Sasuke. Iruka didn't let himself smile at Sakura's facepalm in the corner of his eye.

"Well," Iruka said, as if actually thinking about it and teams hadn't been carefully constructed over their four years in the academy. "The teams are arranged to be as even as possible,"- a lie if ever Iruka had told one- "and you were ranked last, while Sasuke was ranked number one." Then Iruka turned away from Naruto back to the teams,

"Team Eight is Hinata Hyuga, Shino Aburame, and Kiba Inuzuka." It was technically a tracker team, but all three were clan trained taijutsu users. Iruka pitied anyone who underestimated them.

Finally, the last team.

"Asano Sakurai will be part of Team Thirteen, you will be filling a place. Your jounin sensei is Hokori Isan. Your teammates are Yoroi Akadō and Kabuto Yakushi."

Notes:

A/N:

Alright readers, I've gotten a number of comments about Taro, our mysteriously disappearing Sakurai. I would hate to spoil what is coming but there will be a resolution. It admittedly, doesn't seem to be coming particularly soon, as far as I can tell from my current plotting. That said, if you really can't bear it, send me a PM asking for specific spoilers and I will provide them.

This chapter was weird to write, I obviously had to cover this, but I'm so excited for the what comes next I found it really hard to write. Originally it was Shikamaru's POV, then I changed it to Shino's, and thought about Ino or maybe even Kiba's before I went with Iruka's. What do you think?

Chapter 51: Teammates - Kabuto

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It had been annoying when Misumi got himself blown up in the Iwa chunin exams, but those things do happen, from time to time. What was much more annoying was that they hadn't been allowed to take any missions in the weeks leading up the graduation of their new teammate. What was more annoying was that their new teammate - his new teammate - was a new genin.

This would no doubt lead to spending weeks, maybe even months in the village. Kabuto may even need to worry about the chunin exams that he has to attend.

On the other hand, their new member is the same age as Sasuke Uchiha, so this may actually be something of a blessing if it allows for some closer surveillance.

"Alright," Hokori says, rolling his eyes ever so slightly, "it's time to go."

Kabuto pushes stand up and they jump to the academy building. Kabuto never actually attended the academy, so he lets Hokori lead. As per usual, Yokori guards his back, since even if he's not a thinker he's decent at following instructions. Hokori was very clear that as the medic, Kabuto always had to be protected. Obviously Kabuto has never worked particularly hard to discourage this idea, even if it could get annoying.

"You two go up to the roof, I'll have her sensei send her up." Hokori says, smiling in that 'you know what I'm talking about' sort of way that Kabuto so detests. Instead of breaking his neck, as Kabuto wishes he could, he nods and allows Yoroi to jump ahead and lead the way to the roof.

A few scant moments after Kabuto has settled against one of the trees lining the roof, Hokori jumps over the edge to join them.

"Alright, she'll be up in a moment. I don't remember much from my academy days, do academy students know how use chakra?"

Yoroi grunts and after a moment Kabuto shrugs because how would he know?

They wait a few more minutes in silence before an unassuming girl with a head of brown hair and a blandly green outfit opens the door to the roof and steps out.

Kabuto looks her up and down carefully. Her straight hair is messy, hanging just past shoulder length. (Unattended, she doesn't care much about her appearance.) She's wearing a long sleeve shirt in dark green, and if he looks closely he can see the wear on the cuffs of the sleeve. The boxy cut of which is distinctly masculine. Her weapons pouch is the type made for academy students. (An orphan? From a poor family, maybe she's wearing hand-me-downs?)

"Hello, my name is Hokori Isan, I'll be your jounin sensei. These are your teammates, Yoroi Akadō and Kabuto Yakushi." Hokori introduces, probably smiling kindly and all that rot.

"I am Asano Sakurai," the girl bows, "please take care of me." Kabuto feels something in the back of his head itch. Sakurai. The name feels familiar. He gives a closer look the almost feral grin on the girl's face when she glances at him. She looks familiar too.

Her skin is pale and she has dark lines under her eyes. (Insomnia? Sick? Academic?) When she bows to Hokori, Kabuto can see the perfect fit of her sandals, and the distinct lack of wear. That makes sense though, at 12 she's probably growing out of her clothes on a weekly basis.

"Normally jounin give their new students a test and send them back to the academy if they fail," the girl is disappointingly unsurprised (she must have some friends or relatives who talked about it). "I decided not to do that, instead we're just go straight into missions and if for some reason you don't work with the team then we'll talk about it and if necessary you can go back to the academy for a term."

"Alright sensei, that works for me!" The has turned towards Hokori but is slightly turned so all three of them are in her line of sight. Already she's more aware than half the genin Kabuto has met in his many disappointing years as a spy.

Kabuto wonders what she must think when she looks at them. Hokori isn't exactly an intimidating presence, with tan coloured hair that could be best described as 'fluffy' and not a single scar in sight. (Although if the girl has any intelligence at all, she'll know that means that he's all the more dangerous, to have reached jounin largely unharmed.)

He himself appears much younger than he is, sometimes he's still mistaken for someone as young as 14. (Rarely does anyone bother to look past Nono's glasses and the softness of his hands.)

Yoroi, despite being about as dangerous as a mid-sized cat (and thus the least dangerous member of Team 13), probably looked the most intimidating. He was the tallest, and broadest of them, and the burns covering the entire right side of his body probably didn't help. (Although the girl wouldn't be able to see the full extent of the damage, the ugliest part where his lips had been burnt away was covered by a light fabric mask.)

"Excellent, we can start of getting to know each other over lunch. Our usual restaurant is Ippudo Roppongi, near the mission centre," Hokori said, leading the way down the stairs. "After lunch we'll do a D-rank then end the day with a bit of training."

The girl gestures for everyone to walk before her. Kabuto wonders if it's a sign of good manners or of paranoia, but allows it either way. She's a fresh genin; he's not exactly scared of her.

Ippudo Roppongi isn't exactly fine dining. It started off as their team restaurant because it was fast enough for hungry teenagers after a mission, and cheap enough for orphaned genin to afford. That said, it is one of the few parts of Konoha that Kabuto actually… enjoys. (He might even miss it, once he can't visit it anymore.)

The atmosphere in the restaurant is quiet still, the lunch rush of chunin on break still hasn't arrived so they are seated immediately. Once they've sent off their orders the girl starts,

"So, I don't know if you've been told but. Uh. I was born during the kyuubi attack, so it kinda messed up my chakra system." The girl flushes in obvious embarrassment, "It's not something that's been well recorded so no one's really sure what the long term effects will be. For now though, it means that I get sick a lot, and that chakra exhaustion is much more dangerous for me."

Kabuto smiles, pushing up Nono's glasses ever so slightly.

"Maybe that's why you were put on this team then," he says with a soft smile, "I'm a medic. Not a great one yet," he scratches the back of his head in embarrassment to add to the tone of self deprecation. "Hopefully I'll be able to help though!"

"Thank you Kabuto," the girl smiles and Kabuto stops himself from pausing. The girl's eyes had scrunched up and mouth had opened slightly. Taking it apart the smile should have looked normal, real. Kabuto is now struck with the idea that maybe this girl is ROOT. Her smile was wrong. (WrongWRONGwrong.)

"This is Yoroi," Hokori introduces, "during our last attempt at the chunin exams our other teammate, Misumi, died in an explosion. Yoroi got caught in it as well, but survived. Unfortunately, the left side of his body was badly burnt and he can't talk." Well. It's not because of the explosion that he can't talk. But he'll leave the girl to her assumptions.

"Oh, what type of signing do you prefer?" The girl asks, looking at Yoroi. Kabuto doesn't roll his eyes, but he really wishes he could. Instead he coughs and when the girl looks at him he says,

"Yoroi prefers not to talk. Although he will use Konoha general sign if he has to."

"Alright," the girl nods, "I'll make sure to brush up on it." She glances around the table and it occurs to Kabuto that the girl is significantly smaller than the rest of them. "How old are you guys?" She asks, clearly thinking something along the same lines.

"I'm 24," Hokori says, "Yoroi is 23, and Kabuto is 20."

"Jeez," the girl wilts slightly, "well I'm 12. I'll be 13 in like… ages." There's a moment of quiet as the food is delivered and the Kabuto lets out a soft laugh at the way the girl eyes her bowl of ramen.

"Do you know why you were put on a team so much older than you?" Kabuto asks, genuinely curious. The girl is unlikely to know, but Hokori might.

"Mmmm," the girl hums, swallowing an ungodly amount of food in single breath. "Well, like you said, you're a medic. Maybe they wanted someone who could look after me? My brother went missing during a mission and I have semi-important bloodline?" Kabuto internally sighs a little when she doesn't expand of her 'semi-important bloodline'. It probably wasn't that great anyway. "I can't really think of anything else, sorry."

Hokori taps his bowl with his chopsticks for their attention, like the animal he is, "I think I might be able to help with that. Your teacher said that you were extremely advanced at general academics and chakra. You're a bit behind when it came to taijutsu though." The girl nods and Kabuto holds back a twitch. That doesn't explain anything at all. Why would they put a taijutsu weak member on the team that just lost their number one frontline fighter?

"Mostly though, it's because I'm moderately skilled at sealing, and Kabuto here is a medic." Hokori says with a weighted look that makes the girl flush.

"I guess it was silly to think I'd managed to keep that a secret," the girl says, scratching the back of her head.

"A little bit," Hokori agrees, slurping his noodles.

Returning to D-ranks is not exactly Kabuto's idea of a good time, even if it's humourous to watch his new teammate fume at their chore list. Regardless, despite a few grumbles she's taken on a fair amount of the work and has yet to say a single word on 'fairness'.

They took an easy mission, just delivering and picking up laundry from a dozen or so different houses. Kabuto wonders if the girl realises the many layers of reasoning behind D-ranks. Judging by the considering look on her face, she might. He's going to have to read her file soon, honestly he could probably just ask Hokori for it.

That wouldn't be any fun though, now would it.

Instead, Kabuto watched as the girl smiled at their client and accepted a bag of laundry bigger than she was. Rather than passing it off to Yoroi, which would be the sensible option, given her size and relative weakness, she attempts to carry it herself. She probably had a complex of some sort, given that she had felt the need to introduce her illness just after herself.

No orphan or civilian born kid would ever get into the academy with health like hers. (One of the requirements of the academy being 'healthy of mind and body' or something like that.) Most likely she had some sort of important family member, or as she said it 'semi-important bloodline' that meant that she was expected to become a chunin before she retired to raise exactly three shinobi children. Perhaps she was part of one of the Shadow Clans, Orochimaru kept such close eye on. That would explain how he was able to recognise the name at least.

Kabuto resisted sighing, it wouldn't do anyone any good. Especially not now, considering that the girl was carefully watching all of them. He wondered, briefly, if they'd met before. It certainly wasn't impossible, he had spent the last several years in Konoha and had spent a few of his childhood years here as well.

The idea that she was ROOT would explain it. He was rather famous for there for having survived more than ten years, which was more than twice the average length of time... Maybe the girl was put on the team because of Danzo? Kabuto hadn't thought about it, he hadn't really thought about Danzo much recently, since he hadn't seen the man since his assignment to surveil the various chunin exams.

Kabuto twitched. Danzo would probably try to 'retire' him soon, since he'd now attended enough chunin exams without dying or passing that people might start getting suspicious. Kabuto made a mental note to contact Oto and make sure an escape plan was prepared for him. It would be inconvenient to have Konoha on his tail.

Maybe he should fake his death on a mission? Not now of course, but eventually, when the time grew nearer. It would have to wait until they took one of the higher level C-rank missions (despite the fact that Hokori had finally started to allow Team 13 to take B-rank mission, that wouldn't happen anytime soon with a green genin).

Kabuto glanced at the girl again, a slight shake of her arms suggested that she was starting to regret carrying the bag all on her own.

"Here, let me take that," he said, plucking the bag out of her arms and carrying it like it was nothing (more to impress her than anything else). He should probably help to train her up as fast as possible to make sure they would be able to take part in higher ranked missions and the chunin exam, even with a practical baby holding them back.

She wasn't a taijutsu type, that was for sure, given he description Hokori had provided at the restaurant. That meant ninjutsu and genjutsu, since she didn't have any obvious specialisation other than sealing. And wasn't it interesting, that she had tried to learn sealing in private and wasn't dead? There weren't very many sealing experts, or even semi-skilled sealers in Konoha (or any other nation, for that matter) for a good reason. It was an incredibly dangerous art, though it could be incredibly deadly as well (as Uzushio showed).

Perhaps he would keep an eye on her, on Orochimaru's behalf, given his interest in sealing and clever, half-forgotten children.

***
Training with the girl is interesting. It's obvious she's never had the sort of training that any clan child or ROOT agent has experienced. On the other hand. She doesn't complain. She sweats and grunts. When Yoroi kicks her in the stomach and she flies backwards several feet, she heaved for a minute before muttering,

"Fucker," and getting back down to it.

Hokori set Yoroi to test her taijutsu, which is… well Kabuto can't compare it to any other new graduates, but it's pretty terrible. She clearly only knows academy style taijutsu, which isn't really a taijutsu style at all so much as a set of kata to teach patience, stability, and other foundations for the actual styles students can learn from their family or jounin sensei.

After that's done, Kabuto gets the unenviable job of healing her bruises and looking into the wheezing noise. (Oh would you look at that, a cracked rib. She really is delicate isn't she.) He technically isn't really quite at the level where he should be able to fully heal a rib on his own. Despite the annoyance he feels over it, he leave the rib a bit weak.

"Please go to the hospital after this, I'm not very good at healing bones yet," Kabuto says, looking her in the eye to make sure she does. It would be incredibly annoying if he got held back on his assignment because she got a rib in her lung or something like that.

"Alright Asano," Hokori says, down to business. As much as Kabuto looks down upon Hokori in the privacy of his own mind, he puts up with the jounin because when he gets down to business, he gets down to business. "I know you were learning about seals, but I haven't had the chance to look at your detailed file yet.

If Kabuto has any skill at reading people (and he does), then Hokori is lying. Most likely because he wants to know how much the girl trusts them, or at least, how obvious she is. Most likely there is an in-depth file on her sealing skill, since that the sort of thing Konoha cares about, and if she lies here then she clearly is a bit of an idiot and hasn't taken any consideration for how likely she is to be caught. Or else, Kabuto supposes, she doesn't really care if she gets caught.

"Oh, not that much. I have a book I found that helps a lot. I've only been able to get like... three? I think, seals to work. I've set off... eight? I think?" The girl says, shrugging under Kabuto's ministrations.

"Okay, which seals?"

"Umm. The first one was a practice seal, 'wet spot'. The second one was a beginners explosion tag, 'safe smoke'. The third one I did, like two days ago, called 'puff' and it made a little puff of steam."

"That's a solid base of safe, given the subject, seals." Hokori nodded, "I'll want to go over your work in a few days while Kabuto and Yoroi have a day off. Do you have a journal you keep notes in?"

"No, my ka-san would murder me if she knew I was learning sealing without any help."

Hokori nodded, thoughtful, "alright I want you to get one and put together everything you can think of before this weekend. If anyone asks, you are now learning from me."

"Yes sensei."

"Good, now, chakra. You clearly can use chakra. Can you tree walk?"

"No."

"Okay, it's pretty simple, but you have to get it down before we start doing anything interesting. I want you to practice this until you get it down, okay?"

"Yep!"

"Do you need any healing Yoroi?" Kabuto asks looking at his teammate. Yoroi shakes his head and Kabuto holds in his ugly laugh at the disgruntlement on the girl's face. As if she, a green genin, could land even a single hit on a full grown man. (Admittedly, not a chunin level adult, because no matter how decent Yoroi is at hitting things and absorbing chakra, he's got a much better opinion of himself than his skills deserve.)

"Watch me carefully, I can do it again if you need me to, but I'll be annoyed if you aren't paying attention," Hokori warns, and the girl turns to watch as he slowly attaches a foot to a tree. After a moment he takes another step up and continues to walk up and around the branches until he's so far up the tree it's obvious he's using chakra to support it. There is no way in all of the Sage's kingdom that the tree's measly inch of branch can hold Hokori's full weight up.

Regardless, the girl is clearly not thinking about that.

"How on Konoha have I gone so long without seeing this?" She asks in awe, her eyes wide and her face flushed in wonder. Bitterness makes Kabuto's stomach turn and he pushes it away, instead he stands and helps the girl to her feet.

"I expect you probably have, " Kabuto says, "most of the time it probably would have been on houses. Have you ever seen a shinobi go roof hoping?" The girl nods. (If she hadn't then Kabuto would have been forced to utterly despair.) "That's how they do it."

"Alright!" Hokori calls from the top of the tree before leaping the distance to the ground, landing with a delicate step that Kabuto admires ever so slightly. (He's never quite been able to get it down, he always puts too much pressure on either his ground or his knees and one of the two ends up cracking.) "Your turn to try. I suggest you start with a run, it's easier."

The girl looks a bit nervous now, but she nods anyway and charges towards the tree only to stop so suddenly that she falls over.

"You know," she says, trying to laugh it off, "It's been a while since I've tried to ignore my own self preservation instincts to this extent." She approached the tree and looked at her hand carefully for a moment before pushing against the rough bark of the tree. Slowly she pulls her hand back, and then lifts it. It comes away without any hesitation.

"This might take a while," she admits, "I did manage to use chakra consciously, but it took. It took a long time."

"Well that's no good" Hokori said with a thoughtful look on his face. "How about this, if you don't do it in the next five minutes I'll drop you from the top of the tree and have Kabuto heal you?" Kabuto looked up the top of the tree, it wasn't a short fall.

The girl's face turned pale and she turned back to the tree with a glare.

After a minute of trying (and failing) to get her hand to stick to the tree, she backed up and tired for another running start. This time, she ran straight into the tree instead of managing to stop herself, which made Hokori sigh mournfully. Kabuto wondered, briefly, if he really would drop her.

Hokori had been trained by Orochimaru, which tended to lend itself to the idea that he had learned though that sort of ruthless style. On the other hand, Orochimaru tended to take desperate orphans, show them love, and then hurt them. This was a very different situation.

Hokori hadn't been training Team 13 for very long, he had inherited the team after their Yoroi's first jounin-sensei died an inconvenient and avoidable death (if only she hadn't tried to look into things that were none of her business). He was a strict teacher, by Konoha standards, and on occasion he made Anko look sane by comparison, but he had never hurt them the way dropping the girl from a four story tall tree would.

The girl stood up and made an annoyed sound as she dusted herself off.

Yoroi tapped him on the shoulder and Kabuto turned.

'Train?' Yoroi signed and Kabuto nodded after a pause. It wouldn't actually help that much to watch the girl struggle with chakra sticking for five minutes. Either she would get it, or she wouldn't. He would learn the most about her by checking up on her reaction when she did, or didn't, manage to stick after five minutes.

Starting off with a light contact spar, Yoroi tried to get enough physical connection to draw chakra and Kabuto dodged. (Medics are the most important members of the team and must be able to dodge.)

"Can I get help from my teammates?"

"No."

Yoroi and Kabuto made eye contact, wordlessly communicating both amusement and pity for the girl. It had taken even Kabuto, with his very impressive chakra control, more than five minutes to get the hang of it. (Kabuto hadn't known Yoroi when he learnt to tree walk, but it had probably taken at least a day. )

As expected, the girl doesn't manage to even stick to the tree after five minutes, let alone actually manage to walk up it. Kabuto watches with intense curiosity as Horoki throws the girl over his shoulder and starts jumping up the tree. The girl starts babelling. First, the expected sort of babel that most people do when they expect pain,

"No, no please stop," and so on. As Hokori reaches the top of the tree Kabuto starts channeling miniscule amounts of chakra to his ears so he can hear what happens, the girl's words change to nonsense. "Oh my god I hate everything why did I choose to be a ninja I hate pain so much-"

Kabuto listens intently to the foreign words. He only speaks Native, just like most the people in the Elemental Nations but there are a few other languages scattered around in small tribes and among the people in the Unknown out past Iwa's borders. He didn't realise that the girl spoke another language though. (How did she learn it? Non-Native languages are considered a security risk, after all.)

At the top of the tree the girl stops struggling and hanging limply on Hokori's shoulder, Kabuto can hear her hissing with rather impressive vehamence.

"If you drop me, I will hate you. Forever. And someday I will kill you for it."

Kabuto has tortured more people than he would honestly prefer. The blood will never leave his hands, and for the most part he doesn't care. (It's really not a very scientific matter, that was why Kabuto hated it.) One thing that Kabuto can say though, is that Hokori is being an idiot. For all that the man trained under Orochimaru, one thing he forgot was that you must make someone love you before you hurt them. The girl doesn't love any of them yet.

Hokori lifts the girl from his shoulder and moves the drop her, but she doesn't fall. Kabuto can hear Hokori's yelp. The girl's hands are tightly wrapped around Hokori's arm and not for the first time Kabuto wishes he could see chakra like a Hyuuga. Or at least sense it.

After a moment, the girl falls.

There are branches that fly past the girl on her way down, but she fails to grab any of them. The correct response would be to fall into the roll that Kabuto is mostly sure has been taught at the academy (they must have taught it at the academy). The girl, does not do this.

She hits the ground feet first with a sharp crack.

She rolls over the balls for her feet, falling forward. Kabuto watches as Hokori lands by her side a moment later, carefully rolling her on her side.

"Sage's fucking mother that fucking hurts."

"Kabuto, come heal her as much as you can then take her to the hospital." Hokori says after looking the girl over for a moment.

Kabuto kneels by her side, using mystic palm to read her injuries. He barely glances at her face which is so pale it looks more like one of the yellow tinged flowers found on the edge of Kiri's border than skin. The break isn't that bad at all, a fairly clean impact fracture on the tibia. The pressure from the fall having fractured the bone and then pushed them together, there are understandably some bone fragments have broken off. Kabuto slowly dissolves the fragments, since that's easy stuff and could genuinely be dangerous to the girl's health.

After a few moments Kabuto sighs, the bone fragments are gone, but the girl might be going into shock from the strange blood flow. Shock isn't that hard to treat, but because messing it up can be fatal… well it would be best that the girl go to the hospital. Officially Kabuto isn't supposed to be dealing with life threatening injuries.

"I think she needs to go to the hospital," Kabuto says, looking up at Hokori, "it looks like she might be going into shock."

"Alright, I'll take her," Hokori says, moving to lift her.

"Carefully please, I haven't set anything yet," Kabuto says, unmoving as Hokori lifts the girl and jumps out of sight within seconds.

If nothing else, perhaps the girl will be a chance to practice 'healing' more often.

"Yoroi, Kabuto?" The girl said, raising a hand in greeting, "this is my friend Sakura, she's my best friend." The girl is smiling but Kabuto notices the twitch of her lips. The contempt. She hates him. Kabuto relishes in it, in the way she tries to hide it, just as much as he hates it. She is irrelevant to him, to his life, to his goals. His goal is never to make people hate him, that's just a side effect.

Oh but Kabuto isn't like Danzo, isn't so foolish to believe that he is safe just because she is weak. Kabuto will never be able to let her get too strong, too good. He'll have to be careful. If she gets too strong, he may have to kill her.

Kabuto looked away from his medical textbook towards the other girl. 'Pink,' was his first thought, seeing her very, very pink hair. It was tied up in a functional braid against the back of her head, but unlike his new teammate, this new one would never find a home in infiltration. It would be a while before any civilian forgot the sight of that hair. (Does she have green eyes? Really? And her name is Sakura?)

"Hello Kabuto-san, Yoroi-san," the girl said, using the suffix that shinobi rarely did. Whether it was a sign of formality or weakness, it was unclear. The girl's short sleeved shirt showed the bare outline of muscle which suggested she wasn't completely useless when it came to taijutsu at least.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Kabuto said smiling shyly and pushing up Nono's glasses over the bridge of his nose. Yoroi nodded at them.

"Sakura wanted us to meet each other's teams, but I thought it might be better if just she came," the girl said with laugh, "not that I'm embarrassed by you or anything, but Sakura's team is ahhhh-"

"Don't worry about it," the pink haired girl said, patting her friend on the shoulder, "even I can see the disaster waiting to happen in my team."

"Also," the girl added, "you guys are a fair bit older so I was worried it might be a bit awkward."

Kabuto smiled at his teammate as if to reassure her, she did seem ever so desperate, the way children often were around grown ups. Sometimes Kabuto wondered about her (and even still now he was unsure of her possible relation to ROOT). Most of the time though she seemed rather ordinary.

"Ah! Sorry I'm late!" Hokori called from the entrance to the training ground. He took a few chakra charged leaps, landing nimbly next to the group. (No, Kabuto wasn't jealous, shut up.) "Oh is this one of your friends, Asano?"

"Yep! This is my friend, Sakura Haruno."

"Nice to meet you Sakura! Shouldn't you be at training now?"

"Ah, soon, we don't really start until a bit later." The girl shook her head slightly, with no small amount of judgement hidden under the casual comment. As if she had any idea of the amount of pressure jounin-sensei were under, to keep up with their mission intake while training rotten brats at the same time. "By the way, Kabuto-san, was that book you were reading Clinical Atlas of Interstitial Lung Disease and Chakra Treatments by Etsu Mira?"

Kabuto pauses.

"Yes it was. Are you familiar with it?"

"Yeah," the girl huffs, "I tried to check it out of the library a few days ago, but someone had already taken it out." The girl sent a weighted glance toward the book in his hand. The library book.

Kabuto has already read the book, multiple times actually. It's one that only medics in training read, since it doesn't go as in depth as full medics need, but it's a good one for beginners. Kabuto only checked it out since he needs to keep up the idea that he isn't already a better medic than anyone else here.

No one bothers to read the titles of the books he reads or they would realise that he checks out a similar pattern of books based on which ones, and authors, are the most tolerable. (Tsunade Senju is unbearably preachy, especially considering the hypocrisy of her suggesting that a medics second best skill should be their ability to dodge.)

"It's a good book, I'll make sure to tell Asano when I've finished so you can get your hands on it." Kabuto almost goes back to reading, except that would be rude. So instead he gives her a considering look and adds, "do you have someone to help you with learning, or were you trying to keep it secret like Asano did?" The girls both flush at the same time. Although, somewhat interestingly, his teammates ears turn pink, while the pink haired girls face flushes red.

"Maybe you should head back to your team now Sakura? Unless you'd like to join us on our D-rank?" Hokori says, almost pointedly.

The girl leaves with haste. Understandably. Kabuto's new teammate might hate Kabuto, but series of D-ranks they've been forced to undertake in order to introduce her to the life of a shinobi is close to making Kabuto return the feels. (At this point to hate the girl would be investing more energy than she's worth.)

In the afternoon Hokori will start to teach the girl some kata that he knows, that Kabuto recognises from Orochimaru. Hokori and the girl spend between two, and four hours training each day, while Kabuto and Yoroi focus on their own research. Kabuto has to spend at least 10 hours a week working at the hospital, although his current persona forces him to do more. Yoroi does whatever it is he does in his free time. Probably eat food and fail to train, based on his utter lack of progress.

The girl fades into the background of his life.

Notes:

A/N:
To those of you who don't know: on AO3 I have a connected fic called Original Characters and Profiles. If you, like myself, have a hard time keeping track of characters, you may find it useful.

This a reminder: every character is an unreliable narrator and things they suspect/believe/"know" maybe completely or partially wrong.

I updated my other Naruto work recently, you should check that out. It's called Red Eyes in the Dark. Also Ippudo Roppongi is an actual restaurant I found on tripadvisor. It's in Minato, Tokyo. This chapter has been mostly done for almost three weeks now. I eventually left it shorter than I had originally planned since I really don't like writing Kabuto's POV.

1) Do you have any ships you'd like to see in this Fic, main characters or backgrounds? (I have some of them decided already, but I'd still Iove to hear what you think!)
2) What POV do you want to see? (Next chapter or eventually.)
3) Do you want to keep with the current tone of the story, mostly light hearted with a bit of dark, or would you prefer something else?

Chapter 52: Goal - Sakura

Notes:

Most of the chapter is Sakura POV but there's a short scene at the stop from Iruka's POV

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Iruka didn't trust 'genius', it had a long history of disaster. Orochimaru. Hatake. Itachi. He had thought that he was being clever, putting Asano on an older team, where she wouldn't be the best. Maybe it would stop her from going insane, from thinking herself untouchable. But now? Looking at the medical report from the same day that he handed her over to Team 13 he was horrified. Her legs were shattered.

If the medical report had been from Sasuke, or Naruto, or Ino, or Kiba he would have been suspicious, but all of them had a tendency to run before they could walk. They all took risks, and paid the price. Asano wasn't like that. She was slow, and methodical, and clinical. She never would have willingly put herself in that situation.

He had thought it clever to put Asano under Hokori Isan, who had been trained by Orochimaru before his defection, and worked at T&I. (Had been cleared by T&I.) Iruka had thought that putting her under someone who would know what signs to spot, and how to deal with them was the best choice. Now he had this terrible fear. A teacher as cruel as Orochimaru, teaching the skills of infiltration to a genius?

Before he could at least trust that Asano liked Konoha. Now there was a pit in his stomach that told him he might've made a terrible, terrible mistake.

***
"Alright," Asano hummed, looking annoyed at the damp grass below. After a quiet huff she gave up on finding a dry patch and laid down on her back, resting her head in her hands like Shikamaru went he was cloud watching. Watching the unexplained fabric at Asano's collar bone, Sakura pulled her hair into a ponytail before she forgot about it. Asano's own hair in adorably childish pigtails. (Asano had admitted that she was probably going to cut her hair off since it wasn't really long enough to secure effectively.) "How would you kill… The Senju Princess: Lady Tsunade?"

"She's the healer, right?" Sakura checked, trying to recall the info Asano had presented a week ago. Since their graduation they'd been working on 'game' to find the best strategy to beat much stronger opponents. Asano insisted they would look at weaker, and non-Konoha enemies later, but that there was more information on strong Konoha raised shinobi which would make it easier. "What's her profile again?"

"Her full name is Tsunade Senju, she's the granddaughter of Tobirama Senju." Asano said, watching the trees on the edge of the training ground dance in the breeze. Sakura wondered how she remembered this. Asano had said that her parents had taught her, which made sense. Her parents were sensible enough to worry about the other shinobi she might meet, and optimistic (or pessimistic, depending on how you looked at it) enough to expect that Asano would need to know everyone. It was still strange that Asano remembered all of it though.

"She's a medic and taijutsu expert - though her main taijutsu skill is punching things really hard. She's particularly dangerous because she can heal herself. Despite being in her fifties, she still appears to be in her twenties or thirties. I don't know if she's physically younger, or if she just looks like it though."

"How quickly can she heal herself?"

"I don't know, but she's famous for the diamond seal on her forehead, the Seal of a Hundred. When released it heals her really quickly and makes her as strong as a hundred shinobi."

"So I'd need like… an insta-kill or something?" Sakura asked, trying to imagine the options. Poison was probably off the table since she might be able to heal or stop the damage. She didn't know any genjutsu, which might've been useful, given Tsunade's skill set. The ninjutsu that non-clan genin knew was mostly limited to defensive or non-attack based stuff, and Sakura didn't have enough chakra to have a ninjutsu fight anyway.

"I guess? I don't know how much of her healing is automatic, maybe if you distracted her then you could kill her before she healed?" Asano said, sitting up and glancing at the edge of the training field. She lifted a hand to fiddle with the loose fabric at the base of her neck but let it go before Sakura could identify it.

It was only 5:30 in the morning and the sun wasn't completely up yet. It was just starting peak the edges of the horizon. Naruto and Sasuke would arrive any minute now.

"So I guess I'd try to cut off her head or remove her heart? You can't really survive that - no matter how much you can heal. Maybe cut her spinal cord, if that was easier? I'm not sure if she would be able to heal it, but even if she did it would probably take a while."

"How would you do that? A sword? A kunai?" It was quiet as they each thought about it. Sasuke and Naruto were both better at this. Naruto was helpful in that he would think of a hundred ideas a minute, most of them would be ridiculous, but they would help get things moving at least. As it was, they were mostly just enjoying each others company after their morning run, for the time being.

"Good morning!" Naruto called from the edge of the clearing, far too loud for the early time and causing a small gathering of birds to fly away. The sun had peaked the horizon and Asano appeared to be half asleep as she sat up.

"Good morning Naruto!" Asano said, in that same infuriating tone. Simultaneously pleasant, yet distant. Sakura could admit… she was a little bit jealous. They were still best friends, obviously, but it had just been the two of them, and now Asano insisted on including Naruto and Sasuke whenever possible. Even when Sasuke was being a jerk and Naruto was being an idiot. More than normal at least.

"Morning Idiot," Sakura said with a smile. It was Sasuke's nickname for Naruto, but it made her feel a bit better about spending time with him. Anyway, it was team building.

"Should I wait for Sasuke to show you?" Asano said out loud, but really speaking to herself. Sakura rolled her eyes but Naruto look the bait, jumping in front of Asano and rudely pointing at her,

"Don't wait for that bastard!" He shouted, looming above them in a mockery of intimidation.

"Alright," Asano agreed, "but then I'll have to show it off again when he arrives." Asano smirked, then pulled up the fabric that was bunched up around her neck. Sakura started to smile as her curiosity was satisfied before she realised what she saw. She wished she could go back.

It was a mask.

It was the same style as Kakashi-sensei's.

Sakura stared in revulsion as Asano's eyes twinkled with mirth.

"Noooooooooooooo!" Naruto wailed, falling to his knees, "she's been infected!" He turned to Sakura and offered his hand, "quick, run away with me Sakura, we must avoid Kakashi-itis!"

Sakura gave a long suffering sigh and took his hand, running off while Asano - still wearing the mask - chased after them. The dewy grass was slippery and when Sakura slipped, Naruto went down under her. Asano, who tried to stop quickly landed on top. So, obviously, this was when Sasuke arrived.

"What are you doing?"

"Good morning Sasuke!" Asano said, rolling off the pile and slipping on the grass for a moment before standing up. "I was just showing Naruto and Sasuke the mask my Ka-san got me to wear on missions." Sakura watches as the look of dawning horror spreads across Sasuke's face. It was very satisfying to watch.

"Why?" Sasuke asked, still staring at the dark blue fabric.

"Other countries have different disease strains and getting sick on a mission could kill me in multiple different ways?" Asano said. As if it was obvious. The exaggerated, humorous terror that Sakura has felt upon seeing it grew into the real thing. It was easy to forget how fragile Asano was. Every once it a while Sakura would be reminded of it, like when Asano has said that breaking her leg was the first time she'd had to go to the hospital for a physical injury. Or when Sakura has joined Asano for a check up, and the nurse helping them had known Asano's name and details by heart.

"Do we need masks too?" Naruto asked, pushing Sakura off. He sounded concerned, most likely for multiple reasons. (They would look like Kakashi. Was it real worth their health to look like Kakashi-sensei?)

"Naruto, have you ever gotten the flu in your life?" Asano turned to look at him, tone and eyebrow arching.

"...no?"

"Maybe! I don't know! But I doubt it! I mean- Sasuke and Sakura might want to, but they probably don't need to. Chakra usually does a pretty good job of protecting from diseases."

"Why would I need one if Dead Last doesn't?"

"He's an Uzumaki."

Team Seven stared at Asano blankly.

"I forgot that you parents wouldn't have told you," Asano said after a moment, pressing the heal of her hand to her forehead. "Almost all of the open information about Uzu and it's clan has been lost or suppressed, but clans and families still know about it."

Asano moves towards a patch of new sunlight, and the rest of them followed, curious.

"Uzu was a village on an island surrounded by whirlpools. They were connected to Konoha because the Uzumaki clan - the main, or possible only family in Uzu - were an offshoot of the Senju clan." Asano paused, "anyway, they were really well known for having red hair and being good at sealing. Unfortunately, during one of the Shinobi Wars, Kiri invaded Uzu and destroyed it. Completely annihilated it in less than three days - the amount of time it took for backup from Konoha to arrive."

For a moment the clearing is quiet. Sakura glances at Naruto, who was shaking slightly, his fists clenched tightly. Asano looks solemn. Sasuke is staring at Asano with an impenetrable expression.

"The Uzumaki clan was considered very dangerous, no prisoners were taken. The only survivors were those who were outside of Uzu during the massacre, and even they were hunted down in the following years." Sasuke's face flinches, too quickly for Sakura to read, but far too obvious to miss. Asano reached out and put a hand on Naruto's arm. It seems, to Sakura at least, that despite the fact that Sakura is talking to Naruto, this is important to Sasuke too. Probably because it reminds him of the massacre.

(There's so much Asano hasn't told her about it, Sakura knows this. Asano has talked about how she knows more than she wants sometimes. How you can regret knowing something. How she's too young to know all that she does. It's all very cryptic. Sakura is pretty sure it's because of Taro. Asano only started talking about it after Taro disappeared, and Taro was strange enough to be at least part of the cause. Sakura wonders, a bit, if all the secrets are like Hideo's. Now that people know Hideo has the mokuton, he's in Asano's house less often… he seems sadder. If all the secrets are like that then Sakura is just fine not knowing.)

"You might not be an Uzumaki by blood, there's an Uzumaki swirl on the chunin vests of Konoha in rememberance, the same one as on your jumpsuit. You might've been given the name to honour them." Asano flicked the red spiral on Naruto's arm. "You don't have red hair, and I've never seen you use sealing. But if the Uzumaki has a Shadow Clan, I wouldn't be surprised if your parents had been part of it. You don't see any other orphans getting the Uzumaki name in their honour which is why I thought of it."

"Shadow Clan?" Sakura asked after a moment. She'd heard the term before... somewhere?

"A hidden branch of a family. They're not allowed to use the name or the connections of the family unless they're the only ones left. They're basically the backup, in case something happens to actual clan."

"Do... do you know if the Uchiha have a Shadow Clan?" Sasuke asked after a moment. His voice was a bit coarse and Asano looked at him in surprise.

"I don't know. Some clans, like the Hyuuga don't have a Shadow Clan because of their doujutsu. If the Uchiha did have a Shadow Clan...well. The clan head and the clan heir both know about the Shadow Clan. Traditionally the clan heir meets the Shadow Clan to gain their loyalty once they become chunin." Asano was quiet for a moment, "the Hokage would know, I expect."

"Sakura," Naruto whispered. Loudly. "Do you know what they're talking about?" Sakura didn't respond, unwilling to be part of the rising awkward atmosphere. Naruto pokes her. "Sakura?" A moment later he poked her again.

"Yeah, I'll tell you about it later." She grumbled, pulling him to the side so Asano would talk to Sasuke in relative privacy. It looked like she had something to say to him.

"Okay," Naruto nodded, allowing himself to be pulled aside. "I'll hold you to that! Were you and Asano imagining how to kill other shinobi again this morning?" As if he didn't know.

"Yeah," Sakura said, pouting as she remembered that Asano would no doubt ask for her full plan. "I need to kill Tsunade Senju. She can heal herself and she's really strong."

"It's a creepy game!" Naruto insisted, despite the fact that he was convincing no one. He liked the game. He thought it was overly morbid (not in those words) and he wanted to beat the enemy, not kill them. He still liked it though. Sasuke had explained that subduing an enemy took more skill than killing them. (Sakura agreed on some level. She didn't want to kill people. She would have to, eventually, but it seemed… almost rude to turn it into a game.)

"Yep, wanna help?" Sakura said, ignoring the dismay that came with agreeing with Naruto . He nodded after a moment, still looking kind of grossed out. "I was thinking I'd have to kill her really quickly so she couldn't heal."

"Hmmm," Naruto went into his 'thinking position' that Sakura still wasn't convinced wasn't the effect of a prank someone played on him. She could imagine someone telling him that standing funny like that would make him think better. He'd probably believe them.

"Maybe you could put her in a sealing scroll! Or stop her from healing somehow, like make sure super dizzy so she can't think clearly! When you're numb, it's hard to tell where your body is so many it could stop her from healing. She's from Konoha right? So you don't want to kill her."

"Naruto…" Sakura trails off. Sasuke and Asano have both been explicit: as genin they aren't strong enough for the luxury of a non-deadly win. It's still not comfortable to Sakura. She knows that Sasuke had grown up among shinobi until his family was killed, she can see why he thinks that. It feels wrong that Asano, the same girl who dotes on her little sister and cries over sad books, thinks the same thing. It feels cold.

"I know!" Naruto throws his hands up in distress, "I know! But-" he sighed, "it feels wrong. To kill people without trying to capture them first."

There was nothing to say that, now as there. Sakura agreed. She did. For a few minutes they stood in silence. Eventually Sakura started to stretch and Naruto followed suit.

"I think," Sakura started slowly, "that I want to get strong enough that I can avoid killing people. Asano and Sasuke said we aren't strong enough yet, so that can be a goal." Sakura let the thought cement before repeating, "my goal is to be strong enough to be avoid killing.

Notes:

Just a reminder that this fic is AU, so Tsuande is Tobirama's granddaughter, not Hashirama's like she is in canon.

Comments, questions, and criticism are all appreciated!

Editted 4/4/18

Chapter 53: Training Montage - Hokori

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Your turn Isan," Kurenai Yuuhi said, leaving the Hokage's office. She was one of the many who continued to disbelieve in the loyalty of Orochimaru's students, no matter how many tests he had gone through. Hokori sometimes thought it had to do with the way jonin sensei were considered so important. In other countries jonin sensei were of less importance, if genin had them at all.

"Thank you Kurenai," Hokori said, smiling softly at the flash of distrust on his fellow jonin's face. She was a new jonin. She would learn to better hide her expressions with time. (Truly she wasn't ready to be a jonin yet, but with the Uchiha gone, Konoha was desperately in need of more genjutsu focused jonin. She was one of the few who had bothered to learn the details of genjutsu without possessing a sharingan.)

Hokori bowed deeply upon seeing the Hokage, one of the many symbols of respect that Orochimaru had ingrained within him.

"It's good to see you Hokori," Hiruzen said, smiling in much the same way he had when Hokori had first become a chunin. There relationship had never quite recovered from Orochimaru's betrayal and survival. (Some called Hokori cold but they just didn't understand. Hokori would have mourned his teacher's death. It still would be been better for everyone involved. He would rather Orochimaru had died, so Hokori could have remembered his sensei kindly.)

"And you, Hokage-sama," Hokori returned, taking a seat when his Hokage bid him to.

"You are reviewing Asano Sakurai as part of Team 13," the Hokage says flipping open a manila folder to see the short form summary of Team 13 members. "Did she pass your jonin test?"

"Yes."

After a moment the Hokage looked up at Hokori,

"Does this have anything to do with her visit to the hospital yesterday?"

"She didn't run away. She passed."

"Let me be more clear," the Hokage said, looking stern. "Asano was the only genin who needed to go the hospital yesterday. Why was that?"

"I dropped her out of a tree." Hokori said, mildly surprised. Team Orochimaru regularly went to the hospital after training sessions. Their first hadn't been any different. The Hokage still looked rather unhappy though.

"Why did you drop her out of a tree?"

"...Because that was the test?" Hokori paused for a moment. The Hokage had never worked in Torture and Interrogation. The Hokage could be ruthless and dangerous… but he'd never been in the same situation as Team 13. "Team 13 is a very dangerous team, by nature of our work the members of our team are always in danger, more so than most genin teams. If Asano couldn't deal with the threat and damage done yesterday then she wouldn't work on Team 13 for any period of time."

Team 13 was the genin team with the highest likelihood of capture and torture.

"I see." The Hokage didn't look like he could see. He just looked tired. "And you are aware that Asano has a relatively unknown medical condition?"

"Yes, of course, it was part of her file." Hokori nodded, "that's actually what I wanted to mention next." Hokori looked around the office, trying to find the right words for it. Teams were carefully chosen and approved by the Hokage directly. And yet. Asano was a terrible fit for Team 13. "I don't think Asano should be a member of Team 13 for any longer than it takes for her to reach chunin level.

"Why is that?"

"A number of reasons," Hokori started, not allowing himself to show his hesitance. "Going through the chunin exams every six months in very hard on the genin's body, and I'm worried about Asano's ability to deal with it. If Asano's health does start to fail, it could be very dangerous if she's in another nation." Hokori paused, his fears around Asano health bubbling to the surface. As Asano's jonin sensei it would always be his job to worry about her now. What a massive duty the Hokage had bestowed upon him.

"So far Asano's health concerns have been managed safely. If they are problematic then of course she'll be transferred but her health has been improving steadily for years," the Hokage said, pulling out a larger file and looking one of the early pages. "There have been some concerns about foreign diseases but as a shinobi those are unavoidable. I'm make a note of your concern, and I'll expect another visit from you if it becomes problematic." The Hokage made a few notes before closing the file and looking up again.

"Mostly though, Asano doesn't trust Kabuto. In fact she has actively disliked him from the moment she saw him. Is it possible they've met before?" Hokori paused before adding, "Kabuto didn't seem to recognise her."

"I don't know," the Hokage said, "I'm not sure how they would."

Hokori resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose under his glasses. ROOT. He was suggesting that Asano knew ROOT, had been part of ROOT, or knew that Kabuto had been part of ROOT. Just like most higher level shinobi knew (at least somewhat) about the "disbanded" organisation. The problem was that Asano was a genin, and had a Missing brother. A Missing shinobi might know about ROOT enough to recognise one of their ranks.

(Hokori wasn't a greenie. He knew a ROOT member when he saw the signs. Kabuto had never attended the academy. He showed stunted empathy. His placement on the team stunk of Councillor Danzo's interference.)

The Hokage didn't seem to see the same things that Hokori did though. Instead he just flipped through Team 13's summaries and nodded.

"Understandable. Many teams don't work well at the start. I know Team 13 was already formed when you joined but it's quite common for trust to only come after a couple of stressful missions." The Hokage glanced at Hokori's neutral expression and sighed. "If it's still a problem when she reaches chunin then she can be transferred."

"Yes Hokage-sama."

"Anything else Hokori?"

"Not that this point."

"Then you're dismissed. Please welcome Asuma in next."

Hokori stood and bowed, as he had when entering despite his displeasure.

The next morning, well past when dawn peaked the edges of the trees Hokori reluctantly pulled himself out of his warm bed. No matter how many years he did this, Hokori still hated mornings. He didn't need to meet with his team until nine, but before then he needed to eat, exercise, and meditate. Also if he didn't find Anko to tell her about his new student before she found him… well she'd probably make him regret it somehow.

Hokori pulled a ration bar out of his kitchen and stepped out of his apartment, waving at Usami who was sitting outside of his boyfriend's door. The autumn air in Konoha was already starting to stir with morning, shinobi and busy civilians starting to scurry through the streets.

His exercise routine had been a long sprawling thing before he was a jonin sensei since he was either on a mission, and therefore out of Konoha and didn't do it, or off mission and had as time to waste. Once he had been assigned to Team 13 he'd been forced to cut it down to its simplest, most intense version. Jonin-sensei were expected to meet with their genin at least five times a week for training and to complete a mix of D and C-rank missions (though Team 13 also did a number of B-rank mission with special permission.)

His new routine started by doing jumping jacks on water for five minutes to get warmed up and the chakra flowing. Then he ran through his top kata forms to keep them fresh in his mind, and did fifty handstand-push ups. In all it took around an hour, and if he had time he would do a bit more.

'Anko probably won't even be awake yet. I could wait until this evening to see her,' Hokori thought, 'I could go to bed for another few minutes…' That wasn't really true though. Now that he had accepted Asano onto his team the files would be sent down to T&I for storage and reference and Anko would no doubt see it. Anko was a natural early riser too.

Hokori sighed, absent mindedly running through hand signs in a mixture of patterns at high speeds. (Training hand signs is one of the easiest, and most effect methods of training for ninjutsu and genjutsu - to a lesser extent - types. Anyone who fails to do so is simply lazy in Hokori's opinion.)

T&I was a multi-layered building. On the front it was just another shop (the back entrance was one most Konoha residence would never see and no one ever wanted to). Once you got passed the guard disguised a secretary the building had a room with far too many doors, and not enough labels.

On the important floors, the ones where the loyal Konoha shinobi worked and spent their time, there were large (seal-made, illusionary) windows and Yamanaka donated plants and pin boards with the latest bets on them. One the other floors everything was made of concrete and the lights were barely close enough to avoid shadows. The doors were steels and the moans were not of pleasure. To put things politely.

Hokori paused and felt for Anko chakra. He wasn't a natural sensor but all good (alive) shinobi developed some level of sensitivity, especially to those they spent a lot of time with. And Hokori had spent a lot of time with Anko. (There was a lingering fear around Orochimaru's students and now that Hibiki was dead it was just the two of them for the most part.)

Hokori looked among the desks, looking for Anko and any obviously left out information (a good way to spread gossip without actually being seen talking about it). There were a few notes about the usual stuff, recent jonin applications, Etsu's recent dating adventures, and Lady Torii Kiyonobu's latest release. Anko was at her desk, her forehead slightly red, probably from hitting her head against the desk.

"Yo! 'Kori-chan! What are you doing up this morning?" Anko shouted, far too loud for the time and day and distance between them. She didn't smile per say, but she did look significantly less likely to randomly commit murder.

"Just letting you know that I've gotten a new genin." Hokori said, gently collapsing on a random chair. There were a few shinobi already in, but most would be arriving in the next two hours or so, depending on how late they were up the night before.

"Is that so?" Anko leered, or at least, attempted to. Her eyes were still smudged with yesterday's makeup and she yawned part way through which rather ruined the effect. Hokori just watched for her a moment before she caved and stared rubbing her eyes. "It's this fucking chunin exam, ya' know! Some new upstart shinobi village wants to take part and now Inoichi is freaking out 'cause he doesn't wanna insult anyone! And they want my test to cut 'em down for the tournament at the end, but coming into my exam there could be anywhere from 3 to 30 teams!"

Hokori hummed softly. There was not use trying to talk to her until she had said what she needed to. Anko has been the most ostracised of their team, and it had taken a toll on her.

"... and they said that I can't have them use deadly poison because if I kill too many of them then Konoha'll get accused of sabotage! Which is complete nonsense, just as many Konoha genin would die too..."

Team 13 was in a bit of a dangerous place right now, Kabuto was a genjutsu/taijutsu type but he'd focused on genjutsu so he could be out of the line of attack - a requirement of being a field medic. Yoroi was a ninjutsu/taijutsu type but had focused on ninjutsu which was largely fuelled by his chakra absorbing abilities, though he had decent taijutsu skill so that he could actually get physical contact on his opponents.

"... and the fucker just pretended he hadn't been asleep! He's a fucking Nara, everyone knows they sleep on the job! But no, I'm the one that gets in trouble for throwing paint bombs..."

Team 13's taijutsu type had been Misumi which had worked well enough, at least from what Hibiki has said. Asano was a genjutsu/ninjutsu type though.

Now that he thought about it, Yoroi might be best served by moving onto chunin and joining a different team. He hadn't really recovered from Misumi's death and his somewhat sadistic attitude could be well used in T&I since Ibiki was thinking about retiring soon and adopting a kid, if rumours were accurate. Kabuto would probably be on Team 13 until he was ready to be the next generation's sensei, which worked well for everyone. Kabuto needed info to give Danzo, and he seemed to enjoy infiltration, or was at least very good at it.

"... one of the women's toilets on the floor's been closed for almost a month now..."

Kabuto was Hokori's preference for joining sensei since Yoroi didn't have the empathy or intelligence and Asano wasn't expected to reach jonin.

Yoroi will need more taijutsu focused training. Asano can start by focusing on the basics and ninjutsu. Kabuto can take a leadership class and do some more time at the hospital so he can start learning about healing shattered bones.

"...I mean yeah, I guess she was pretty hot. But anyway, you've got a new team member?"

"Yep," Hokori said, turning his thoughts back to Anko. "Her name's Asano Sakurai. I think she's the family broodmare since her older brother is Missing, her other brother's file is classified and he's marked down for ANBU. Her only other siblings is a civie."

"Sucks to be her," Anko said, entirely unsympathetically. Anko was the last of her family and no one was willing to try and push her towards having kids for fear of reprisal. Hokori also suspected that not everyone wanted mini Ankos running around Konoha.

"I'm gonna need Kabuto to train her in genjutsu, but I need to get her up to speed 'cause I'm pretty sure he'll kill her, accidentally or otherwise if I don't." Hokori said, his thoughts leaving his mouth in dismay. As a jonin Hokori obviously knew a decent amount of genjutsu, but he was a taijutsu/ninjutsu type and had never really excelled at genjutsu theory, which was very important to beginners. He could find a different teacher, but genjutsu had been the Uchiha speciality, and Uchiha were thin on the ground these days. Those who did excel at genjutsu were very overbooked.

"He's your uh-" Anko coughed, "muddy one?" It took Hokori to understand what she meant. They'd both met Team 13 when Hibiki had been leading it and they had agreed that even mentioning ROOT out loud was too dangerous when they were inside of Konoha.

"Yeah. He's pretty good usually, but having lost half his team and getting a greenie has got to be playing a toll on him."

"Sage bless! I'm so glad I'm never gonna have to deal with that!" Anko laughed at Hokori's concern, the cruel, cruel woman she was. "No one would ever give me a team!"

"I don't know, they gave Kakashi a team. Team 7 even."

"Damn!" Anko said, "the Hokage want some kids dead or something? No wait, don't tell me, it's the Uchiha kid?"

"Why would I know?" Hokori waved her off, "I just saw him on the new jonin register."

"You know that," Anko paused for a second, "I heard some rumours from the council yesterday that pressure had been put down to pass this group of genin. I'd thought it was 'cause they want to fill the roster for the chunin exams, but this is the year with the clan heirs wasn't it? Inoichi has been bragging about his 'little Ino-chan~' more than usual. It's always creepy as fuck."

They sat quietly while an Akimichi stormed past. Say what you will about the Akimichi attitude most of the time, but they were not a clan of morning people. (And to the misfortune of everyone, the Yamanaka very much were.)

"What time are you meeting your kids?" Anko asked, the faux innocence tone making Hokori cautious.

"Nine..."

"Right. Well the clock on the wall behind you says 8:57."

"Shit!" Hokori stood up and walked quickly out of the building. (Carefully not running because if he ran on the T&I office floor Yano would ensure that he never ran anything other than D and S ranks missions ever again).

Hokori landed in front of his team, having run the entire way there. There was an extra one. One of Asano's friends, based on their positions. Sakura Haruno based on her hair colour.

"Ah! Sorry I'm late!" He said with a self deprecating smile. "Oh this one of your friends Asano?" As if he didn't know everything about her.

Asano responded and Hokori allowed them to enjoy a few minutes of small talk before he encouraged Sakura to leave (with threats of D ranks of course). She left quickly.

"Alright Team!" Hokori said, smiling to his team, "it's time to do a D-rank!" They didn't respond, but Asano seemed to deflate slightly. Ah the joys of being a genin. They would need to start of C-ranks pretty soon, maybe in a month? That should be enough time to get Asano to a safe level of skill. Maybe she wouldn't be able to help, but at least she wouldn't get them killed.

It would do them all good to be doing C-rank missions sooner than than later. Until then he would enjoy watching them suffer.

"Now hook the fourth line of the Wuu to make Wuu-Ya which has connotations of speed, not fast or slow but rather the existence of time. Wuu-Ya works with other seals to set any function of time, in the future, quickly, slowly, and so on."

"Right…" Asano said, making a notation in her notebook.

"And with that, we finish the Wuu series." Hokori finished, looking over her shoulder at her notes. They weren't great. Her handwriting was sloppy. He had wanted her to improve her brush work so she was using a sealing brush. As an effect there was ink smudged up and down the page and on her hand. It got the important details down though.

There were two ways to teach sealing. Teach full seals so the student could slowly learn which symbols showed up when. Or, the way Hokori was doing it, teaching the symbols and letting the student try to put them together. She had full seals in her mysterious sealing book, and he was teaching her the symbols. She was also under strict instruction to ask for help if she needed it. Between all that she had everything she needed to excel.

"Can we start the Wai series?" Asano said, sounding almost pleading. Hokori let out a short laugh.

"No. It's time to work on chakra channeling." They really didn't have time to spend more on sealing, but it had been one of the main reasons she'd been placed on his team and he didn't expect to have all that long to teach her. Asano sighed and put her notebook to the side before standing up.

"Can I at least start learning actual jutsu?"

"No. Not until you can perform basic academy kata on water. If you keep asking then you'll be doing some D-rank missions on your own, without pay." Normally he would do something rather more lasting, making her spar against Yoroi, for example. All genin were required to do a certain number of low rank missions before taking part in the chunin exams though and boosting her mission numbers couldn't hurt.

Watching Asano fall into a pond on repeat was not particularly stimulating, even when he also had to correct her barely adequate movements. She had more strength, agility, stamina, and speed than originally expected (Asano explained that she ran in the mornings which explained it) but that really wasn't saying that much. He had expected her to be of civilian strength, the fact that she was actually at the expected strength of a greenie wasn't a huge improvement.

Despite her base abilities, she didn't know how to utilise them. She forgot the movements and had to slowly work through it, often with help, each morning. She understood concepts faster than he had expected, her ability to memorise words was also pretty decent. She was terrible at physical learning though. For whatever reason, she was building up muscle memory at a glacial pace and her own embarrassment at her failures was making it worse.

Hokori resisted the urge to sigh deeply, instead he watched, correcting her automatically and thinking ahead. He'd started to understand why Kakashi always carried around a book to read.

"Now make the transformation again, but this time make sure that your posture remains the same while you walk."

Asano released the transformation and ran through the seals again. (Hokori noted that she might be ready to drop a hand sign soon.) This time she looked like Kabuto, his signature shy smile on his face. The kind he never wore while they were on their own but everyone on Team 13 had seen during D-rank missions.

"Come on, walk towards me." Hokori said, watching the way "Kabuto" moved. It wasn't quite right, but it was close. "Curl your shoulders a little more, and take longer steps." After a moment, Hokori nodded. Asano was quite good at playing different characters, but impersonation didn't come nearly as easily.

"Is there a jutsu to mimic voices?"

"Yes. There are a few actually, but we won't cover those until we know your chakra type. One of the best methods is a wind jutsu so if you have wind proficiency it would be best to start with that one. Now let's start with slow sparring, your job is to hide your identity, you don't need to be Kabuto."

"Yes sensei." Asano ran through the hand signs and shifted into the appearance of a Yamanaka, the clan heir most likely.

They exchanged a few kicks, Asano mostly dodging. Hokori watched her movements with a careful eye. Asano would never be a taijutsu master, but she'd gotten to the point where she could beat most of the bandits that were found on the easiest of C-rank missions.

Hokori's foot connected with Asano's chest and she flew back, skidding to a stop.

"Where did you go wrong?" Hokori said, not allowing himself to sigh. If she went up against any shinobi of worth she would lose. Badly.

"I forgot that Ino is slightly taller than me so my arm was in the wrong place," Asano groaned, sitting up slowly and wincing.

"That's right." Hokori looked at her face, "is there anything broken?" Asano paused. Kabuto was working independently, as per usual, so if there was anything wrong she would need to go to the hospital. Asano needed to be excellent at identifying what was hurt and how badly, even if she wasn't a medic. Any shinobi benefitted from such an ability but Asano in particular would need to be able to quickly and precisely describe if her chakra channels started collapsing or any other disastrous effect of her weakness.

"I don't think so."

"Bruising?"

"Yeah, I think that's it."

"Great, get back up and let's try again. This time use a male form. You need to be able to balance even when your height and weight is off." Hokori said, thinking about the way Asano's footwork had suffered from the transformation. This time when she changed she was a Nara, most likely the heir again.

"This time I want you to be the offensive," Hokori said as she moved towards him.

"Cylindrical seals are more advanced than most of what you should be working on right now, but we need to cover it anyway. To be clear: do not use this seal type yet. It is incredibly dangerous for beginners."

"Yes sensei."

"For cylindrical seals you put the root in the centre here, and then put the details around the edges in a circle. In more complex matrices the root will be in three dimension-"

"How?"

"You write down the first layer, run chakra through the layer causing it to disappear. Then layer over it until you reach the top. The top layer will disappear with chakra and then you put the Muu symbol on top which will make the top layer reappear..."

Hokori watched as Asano ran through the academy kata as a warm up. She had finally gotten to the point where she ran through the whole thing correctly. Her movements were stronger and more fluid than they'd been three weeks ago. Her chakra control would never be the best - not without a lot more work - but it wouldn't hold her back. She had a rather large amount of chakra (for someone outside of a clan) presumably that was part of why she was a ninjutsu type. As it was she would probably be able to do two or three A-rank jutsu in a row if she needed, but that would increase through puberty.

That said. She'd lost weight. Her skin had an unpleasant pallor despite the hours spent outside and her collar bone was worryingly sharp. Hokori couldn't figure out why. She was eating enough - he'd checked. She spent most of her free time with her genin friend Sakura Haruno. Asano cooked for the both of them and neither of them seemed to be holding back when they ate. She wasn't sleeping as much as she should perhaps, but she got enough that it shouldn't be having this much of an effect.

"How was that sensei?" Asano grinned, clearly proud of the near perfect performance.

"Very close," Hokori said, "you need to keep your shoulders even, your right one sits slightly higher which is going to move your flips out of balance."

"Flips?"

"You're small enough and quick enough that aerobatics will be more helpful to you than standing firm. You can't take as much damage as Yoroi for example."

"Oh right," Asano said, inspecting her hands as if looking for signs of her future calluses.

"Asano, how often do you see a doctor?"

"Every six months."

"When is your next appointment?"

"In four months or so, why?"

"Genin need to get a number of immunisations before their first C-rank. Also make sure you get a full check up - I don't want you dying on your first C-rank."

"Yes sensei."

"Team 13, it's time for a C-rank!" Hokori said, smiling brightly. His poor little genin looked rather happy about that. As he would expect after a month of nothing but D-ranks and training. Asano had already known what as coming, but that didn't stop her from looking mildly excited. She kept a tight rein on her emotions and actions around the team, particularly around Kabuto. She'd mostly thawed to him from the hours and hours they'd spent together though, and she didn't seem to have anything against Yoroi personally.

"What kind of mission are we doing sensei?" Kabuto asked, looking blandly curious.

"We're gonna do a classic starter C-rank, caravan guarding. After that we'll do infiltration like usual, Asano has to get up B-rank infiltration skill for the Konoha chunin exams so we'll be taking them pretty close together."

Asano's taijutsu was acceptable for now, and she knew the academy three jutsu down quite well. He had thought about teaching her an elemental jutsu before taking a C-rank but decided that the risk of her getting over confident was too dangerous. Once they'd actually been a fight with a shinobi where she could see how outclassed she was, then he could teach dangerous ninjutsu without her getting cocky. In the meantime Team 13 would keep her alive, if not safe.

Notes:

A/N:

As anyone has tried to write Naruto fanfic has learned, the canon timeline is a mess. As such a I am taking creative liberty with it. In canon Anko is supposedly 24. I'm boosting her and Hokori up to 34 both, because that would make way more sense.

Chapter 54: Concern - Kakashi

Chapter Text

The first time Kakashi gets really concerned, he's watching Team 7 from the bushes. Most mornings he spent at the memorial stone, but today were was a family there, clearly saying goodbye, and he wasn't going to interrupt that. He still had an hour until it was time for him to arrive though, and decided that seeing how well Team 7 was bonding would be a good idea.

So he's sitting in a tree, it's just past 8 in the morning, and he feels a sinking feeling in his rib cage. Because it's not just Team 7 that in the clearing that they have chosen as there own (only a three minute run from the bridge where they actually meet). There's Asano there as well.

This is a problem for a few reasons. The first of which is Sakura.

Kakashi never wanted a Team. He knows he'd be bad at it. He doesn't know how to teach. He never really need to be taught the way Rin or Obito did. As Tenzo has told him many, many times, he has no idea how explain who he does other than 'do it'. For another, everything Kakashi touches dies, or at least, suffers. (Gai and Tenzo being the only survivors thus far.)

He never wanted a team, but when he meets Team 7, he can almost understand why they were put together. Sasuke is obsessed with power, Naruto with recognition, and Sakura with... Asano. Which is why this is a problem. Without a significant amount of time away from Asano, it seems unlikely that Sakura will be able to grow, and view Sasuke and Naruto as people who are important to her. Even interviewing her parents it was obvious who took priority in Sakura's life, in a very unhealthy way.

The second problem is that they are bonding. But they're all bonding with Asano, as far as Kakashi can tell. If Asano was part of the team, that would be fine. It's common for there to be a 'heart' of the team who everyone likes best or connects to first. She's not part of the team though. If Konoha was more flexible with their teams like Kiri was then Kakashi would go to the Hokage's office that very second and ask for her to be transferred. (Her own weakness could be used to drive Naruto to work harder to protect her and Sakura to work with Naruto to keep her from harm...)

Konoha isn't like Kiri, and Konoha is very dedicated to their 'three genin, one jounin' team layouts.

Kakashi doesn't see the third problem clearly at that point, but it's only two and half weeks later when he gets smacked in the face with it.

"Get off of me, loser!"

The voice sounds like Sakura. Kakashi moves as fast as he can, if someone has attacked them- It's just Sakura and Naruto. Sasuke is watching them. Asano isn't there (though she's almost aways gone by the time he arrives anyway). Kakashi can already tell that the day is not going to be a good one.

"Good morning, my adorable genin!" Kakashi says, purposefully ignoring the dark clouds over head, and Sakura's targeted glare. It's pretty menacing for a baby genin actually.

"Sensei! You're late!" Naruto shouts, jumping up from where he had been cowering away from Sakura on the ground.

"There was this old man who need help with his furniture..." Kakashi trails off. Now he has the glares of all three of his genin, which is an improvement. There's nothing for bonding like a shared enemy after all. "I already picked up a mission for today," which is to say, Gai cornered him yesterday and gave it to him 'in the spirit of competition'. "We have been given the vital job of cleaning out the gutters in time for winter, and remember: if you do a bad job you'll have to do it again in January."

By the look on their faces (or at least, Sakura and Naruto's faces) they're going to make sure to do a good job.

***

"Give us a better job Old Man Something exciting! Not this little kid stuff!" Naruto shouts at the Hokage. Kakashi feels the hope of another easy day wither and die inside of him. He had expected this of course, Minato, even as Jounin, had had a hard time withstanding boring mission for too long. Naruto had significantly less self restraint and experience than Minato.

Based on the shock on the chunin by the Hokage's side, they either don't know about Naruto's family or they don't know that fact. (Not that he's surprised. Most people don't know what he knows.)

"Naruto! You are in front of The Hokage! Restrain yourself!" Oh. Perhaps that chunin knows Naruto. "You're new genin with no experience! Just like everyone else you start with simple mission that match your skill level!"

"These are chores! Not missions!"

This must be Iruka Umino. Naruto's academy sensei. One of the Hokage's aides. "Ex-"prankster. Based on the look on Sakura and Sasuke's faces, this is pretty common for their interactions.

"-I'm not a little kid anymore! These are baby missions! Give-"

This is getting really annoying really quickly.

"-dare you!-" Really. Really. Annoying. "Dead last!" Kakashi can't exactly make the chunin stop now can he.

"Ouch! Sensei!" Naruto clutches his head, looking up at Kakashi with exaggerated teary eyes. Kakashi has no regrets.

"Stop being a pest, Naruto." Sakura hisses and Kakashi lets his hidden eyebrow raise. Sakura's never liked Naruto, but she was usually willing to be at least decent to him. Not that he disagreed. Icha Icha was just waiting for him but the Hokage said that if Kakashi brought it out into his office again... well. (Anko was not a threat given lightly.)

"Kakashi," the Hokage said, "do you think Team Kakashi is ready for a C-rank." Oh Sage. Everyone knew that the first C-rank mission always went wrong. It was so prevalent that the Hokage purposefully gave dodgy missions as the first C-rank. The mission was going to go wrong no matter what he did, might as well give some chunin an easy one and let the jounin be prepared for the likely problems.

What the Hokage was really asking was 'are Team Kakashi likely to die when this mission doubtlessly go FUBAR'. Kakashi half suspected that the missions went wrong to test the genin to see if they read had what it took to be shinobi, that was not too much time was wasted on those who couldn't stand the immense pressure.

Common enemies were a great way to build teamwork, Kakashi knew that well from being a 14 year old in ANBU. That was almost helpful to him as it gave him permission to lightly torture them until they got their act together and started acting like a team. Acting like team instead of say, a bunch of academy kids, still fighting for the top ranking. That said. They needed to build a working relationship with him too.

Damn Hokage. If he said no then they'd never let it go. And oh he would if he thought they were doomed. But Team 7 was on the verge. Personally he would have waited for at least another month before giving them a C-rank. At this point a C-rank would make or break the team.

"They're a bit young, but it might be useful." Might as well give it a shot.

Given the look on Umino's face, Kakashi's opinion was not shared. Luckily the chunin was smart enough not to start shouting about it in front of the genin.

"Very well, let's see, a starter mission," the Hokage rolled open the yellow 'C-rank' scroll and it down carefully. "There's a spring near Iron Country. A younger, less threatening team is probably a good idea." The Hokage looked up and straight into Kakashi's eye, as if to make sure that his less than subtle hint that samurai might get involved could be lost on him. As if.

"Naruto, you have to make sure you know the protocol for Iron before you leave!" Umino said, "I know you failed the international part of the exam so make sure you study it!" Kakashi could barely resist facepalming. If his adorable genin weren't present then he wouldn't make the effort but it wouldn't do to pick on Naruto too badly.

"You won't leave for a week since the civilians that you'll be escorting on their pilgrimage want to tour Konoha first." The Hokage said, and Kakashi knew it was time to leave.

_

"A C-rank mission!" Oh my Sage. Kakashi had known that chunin was going to be trouble. "Naruto didn't even pass his graduation exams and you want him to go on a C-rank mission after a month!"

"Look," Kakashi said, turning away from his lovely book and up to an angry chunin who really had no business getting involved. "I get that you're biased when it comes to Naruto, but he's not your student anymore. He's mine. It's my choice which missions he goes on."

The chunin looks at him, flushed and frusterated, and not listening. Fine. If he wasn't going to listen to reason then Kakashi would make him.

"If I decided that Naruto needed to take an A-rank then he damn well would, even if that mission was tomorrow." That sure got his attention. "But you know what Umino? My reputation is well earned-" all of his reputations actually. His reputation for getting his teammates killed. His reputation for being deadly. His ANBU reputation for finishing every damn mission. "-I shouldn't be teacher, but it's too late that change that now-"

"Kakashi! Oh I'm so glad you've met Iruka." Genma's tighter than friendly hand lands on his shoulder and Kakashi resists swearing. Barely. "Kotetsu and Izumo are back from their supply run as of this morning. I was thinking we should all meet up. A nice lunch between all of us? I think Gai's probably free for training if you don't want to though, huh Kakashi?"

Never has Kakashi met such a menacing man in such a pleasant package. Too bad he and Raido were doing the dance now, Kakashi missed him.

"I'm afraid I have to make sure my genin are ready for their first C-rank tomorrow actually," Kakashi said, because let it not be said he didn't know how to twist the kunai.

"I'm actually on break right now, I have to get back to the Hokage's office in just a few minutes."

"That's too bad," Genma's grip loosens and for someone reason Kakashi can feel the hairs on his neck raise. "We'll have to meet up another time. It's so important to have strong social networks. I know! How about you bring your genin with you next time! It's always a good idea to make sure they know some other shinobi."

Kakashi would tell Genma to fuck right off (in different words probably), but he knows that this isn't just to make Kakashi miserable. It's also a way to meet Minato's son. Something that Genma probably wants a thousand times more than Kakashi. Why couldn't Genma have been Naruto's jounin sensei? (Sure he's only a tokujo jounin, but everyone knows that's by choice, not by skill level.)

"We'll see," Kakashi says before leaving as soon as possible (aka: misappropriating jutsu to escape - that ceramic vase sitting on a nearby window had been ugly anyway).

***

"It's so cool! We're going to leave Konoha!" Naruto shouts, ignoring (and contributing) to the wide range of shinobi junk flying around the room. Oh shoot those scrolls are valuable- too late.

"It is pretty cool," Sakura adds with obvious reluctance that makes Kakashi want to both smile and grimace. This mission could go so badly wrong.

"Hn."

"Now I need you all to make sure you don't have any books in your bags, there is a high restriction on what's allowed out of Konoha and into Iron and we don't want there to be mess over it."

"We know sensei," Sakura says rolling her eyes. Kakashi sends a pointed look to Naruto who. "Anyone who would bring a book in the first place knows," Sakura corrects.

"Sakura," Kakashi looks straight at her, "All books. That includes notebooks." If Sakura was found with a dodgy book on human biology and experimentation. Well. It wouldn't be pretty. And if the look on Sakura's face is anything to judge by, she had been planning on taking it. Genin were so stupid sometimes.

Chapter 55: Part 3 - Horrifyingly Wrong - Hokori

Summary:

This story is about Asano Sakurai, a self insert original character, but everything is told entirely from an outside point of view. She's best friends with Sakura Haruno, and on Team 13 with Kabuto. Asano has only recently become a Shinobi and Team 13 has just left on their first C-rank mission. Meanwhile, Team 7 has also been assigned their first C-rank mission, earlier than in canon.

Notes:

This chapter contains serious trigger warnings. There are graphic depictions of violence and torture. If you want more details, check the end notes.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Sometimes missions go so horrifyingly wrong that there's no path back. This mission is one of them.

In the cell next to him Yoroi is unconscious as the chakra suppression seals slowly steal his life energy. If this goes on too long he may die, a weakness of bloodline ability. He had been injured in the fight, and Hokori doesn't know if it's been healed. Some shinobi take pride in how they care for their captives before they break them. Most don't bother.

Kabuto was taken somewhere else, which is going to make it a lot harder to escape. He tries not to think too hard about why Kabuto isn't here. He was hurt in the fight, but not as badly as Yoroi. He was clever though, and with his (suspected) ROOT training means Hokori's the least worried about Kabuto of his genin.

Hokori is hanging from his wrists, the balls of his feet barely touching the ground. The chakra suppression seals are low quality and Hokori can already feel his core starting warm up again, but he doesn't have enough to spend supporting his shoulders. Hopefully the damage won't be permanent.

He can hardly care about that at all though because their captors are cruel. They enjoyed the pain they caused while subduing them, and now they have his team. He can hardly care because there's a window in his cell door and he can see the entrance of the interrogation room, the corner of a steel table barely in sight. He can't care at all because he's just watched as Asano was dragged into the room.

As Asano was the youngest and most vulnerable member of their team, she obviously had the least information. Konoha's gentle reputation was the only reason she was in this situation. If they were Kiri nin then it would obviously that no matter what happened to Asano, he would say nothing. He was a Konoha nin though. Therefore they were under the mistaken impression that if they tortured Asano enough then he would tell them whatever they wanted.

Unfortunately for Asano, he had been taught by Orochimaru. Asano's life, and her peace in death was not worth the lives of all of the shinobi Hokori had information on. Her life wasn't worth the lives of the shinobi would die to the same tactic if it worked for them this time.

All he could do that this point was steel himself to what was no doubt coming.

"Alright, this is how this going to go," the shinobi of unknown origin says from the other end of the hall. "I'm going to hurt you until you or your commander tell me what I want to know."

Hokori hears as Asano forces out a laugh, clearly terrified. "If you think my commander will tell you shit then you're fuck out of luck."

"Well that's very unfortunate," the interrogator says, sounding sympathetic even as Hokori can see the way he picks something up from the tray. "We'll start gently, just in case you're wrong."

Asano's scream is entirely unrestrained and Hokori is thankful that's she's not one of the ones foolish enough to hold back. Without a mouth guard or gag, she would most likely crack her teeth trying to hold back screams. It still raises the air on his arms, the protective instincts in him screaming in sync.

Hokori can tell when they pause (eventually) because Asano's scream trails off, replaced by murmurs he can't quite decipher.

Then the screaming is back and when it stops the murmurs are back. Louder. It doesn't sound like she's giving up village secrets, though even if she was he couldn't hold it against her. Hokage Sarutobi declared that no one under the rank of chunin could receive high-level capture training. Something which seriously hurt Team 13 as they were technically a genin team. Not even Kabuto had received the training, not officially at least. Who knew what he'd learned in ROOT.

Screams and mumbling. Back and forth, louder and loud. Finally, he can hear her words, spoken through a torn throat.

"Jashin, I dedicate my pain to you. My pain shows I'm alive. Jashin, I dedicate my pain to you. My pain shows I'm alive."

Over, and over, and over again. The name means nothing to him.

The shinobi who'd taken down Asano in the fight appears in the doorway.

"Please," she whispers, "please, it doesn't have to be a lot. Reo might like doing this, but the rest of us don't. We just need something new."

Hokori just stares at her.

"What was that?" The nin torturing Asano, Reo presumably, says, "it sounds to me like your commanding officer isn't giving us the information we need. What about you? Are you feeling more helpful?"

Hokori can't help but feel a bit proud of the way Asano doesn't even pause in her chant. The other part of him is horrified that realisation that the best he might be able to hope for at this point is that they realise he won't give them anything and they kill Asano sooner rather than later.

He activated the emergency seal. He has to believe that help will arrive eventually.

"Please," the kunoichi pleads, stepping back into the shadows when it becomes clear that she'll get no answers.

"You know... we have a while before we need to report back in," Reo says, his voice still ever so kind. "I am very patient. Did you know that drying blood will start itching? When I was first interrogated, it bothered me a lot. Like I expected getting cut up would hurt, but it felt unfair that the healing hurts too." The man sets down the implement he'd been using and picks up something new. "I learned a lot, those few months. One of them is that you have to mix up the pain, or you can start to almost ignore it."

"Jashin, I dedicate this pain to you. My pain shows I'm alive."

"Nothing? Well, if you insist."

The screaming starts up again. This time Hokori can smell burning.

xXx

The shinobi aren't wearing any identifying markers, although they're wearing the typical Iwa red and are in a squad of five like Iwa shinobi work. Hokori knows they aren't Iwa shinobi though, he worked undercover there for over a year. Among other details, Iwa shinobi tend to be of the consummate professional variety. These shinobi aren't.

xXx

Something happens that makes Reo call for a medic. That makes them stop.

Asano doesn't reply when he shouts.

xXx

The sound of fighting brings Hokori back to focus. He'd been unable to sleep but pain and a lack of chakra makes him feel as though he's spinning in place. It's deeply unpleasant. His shoulders send bolts of pain down his spin with every breath.

"Hokori?" Kabuto's voice hisses in the dark.

"In here," Hokori replies. The ground shakes from a distant explosion as Kabuto gets the door open. "Yoroi is in the one to the right." Kabuto nods, breaking the cuffs around Hokori's wrist and slowly running a glowing hand over his shoulders so he can at least move his arms.

"Asano's in the interrogation room. I'll get her," Hokori says, stumbling forward as pain shoots through him.

"They had me treat her earlier, " Kabuto warns, "she- " A scream from another part of the base reaches their ears and they move forward with their own tasks.

Asano is asleep, or perhaps unconscious on the polished stone table. Hokori swallows back bile at the marks on her skin. He removes the straps as fast as he can, his hands feeling swollen and clumsy. He pulls off his shirt, leaving behind his mesh undershirt, and sits Asano up to put her in it.

Her whole body stiffens and Hokori places a hand on her mouth before she can draw too much attention to them.

"Quiet, Asano. We are still captured but currently working to escape. The shinobi who captured us are currently fighting someone else. We need to work quickly and quietly." When she nods he moves his hand and she swings her legs off the table, a grunt of pain escaping her lips.

' Prefer - jutsu - me?' Asano signs, her hand movements clumsy.

"You can talk, just quietly," Hokori assures, "and your favourite area is fuuinjutsu."

' No - talk' Asano signs, and when she opens her mouth Hokori can see a stump of a tongue. The teeth marks show that the wound was self-inflicted.

There is one horrifying moment where Hokori's brain refuses to accept what he sees, refuses to process it. But the time is short, so he folds it up, and puts it to the side. Asano will need medical help when they return to Konoha either way. He'll just have to make sure she can communicate while they escape.

"Understood," Hokori nods, helping her off the table.

She grabs onto his sleeve for a moment while finding her balance, making Hokori's arm spike in pain.

' T - R - A - I - T-' Asano starts to tap on Hokori's arm.

"Are you ready to go?" Kabuto asks, Yoroi pressing heavily on his shoulder. Asano stops tapping for a moment.

They're standing in the doorway, and Hokori in no way miss Asano stiffening, he wonders if their captures even have a medic. He wonders if Kabuto was the one who healed Asano, that would explain why her tongue hadn't been reattached. Kabuto just wasn't that good of a medic yet.

"Yes, do you know who's attacking?" Hokori asks, keeping Asano close to his side.

"No, but I know where an exit is, I think, and there's a decent chance we can get them before we go."

' O - R' Asano finishes, adding a ' K' a moment later, in case it wasn't clear.

"Lead the way," Hokori says, guiding Asano to run in front of him, in the center of their group.

He doesn't want to believe it, that Kabuto could be a traitor.

xXx

Even if Kabuto is a traitor, he seems to believe that no one knows, and Team 13 is in no state to fight right now. If they make it back to Konoha then Hokori will deliver Kabuto to T&I himself, to clear everything up if nothing else.

The entrance to the base in busy, red armour on both sides. Apparently, some actual Iwa-nin had a problem with their captors' costumes. Kabuto runs in the front, Asano in the middle, and Hokori has Yoroi over his shoulder to carry him. It's incredibly painful, but he wouldn't be able to aim any weaponry right now anyway. It's better than Kabuto protects from the front, that way Hokori can see him.

The world shakes as a bomb of some kind shakes the building, cracks appear in the floor and walls.

Ahead of them is a team of Iwa-nin, real actual Iwa-nin, Hokori's pretty sure. For half a second Hokori despairs when he thinks they'll need to fight. They see Kabuto and Asano first though, and let them pass after only a second of hestiation.

They run as fast as they can, trying to avoid drawing attention. Outside of the base is a disaster zone, a squadron of Iwa-nin fight a dozen or so of the fake-Iwa-nin. Kunai are flying through the air and Kabuto ducks under one. Even if they aren't targetted, it's easy to get hit by accident, and with how weak they all are? That would spell death.

The ground feels like it's wobbling and Hokori can't tell if that's because he's going to pass out at some point, or because of something one of the shinobi have done. The tree line that they're aiming for draws closer. Hokori stumbles, but neither Asano nor Kabuto looks back. A scream shoots through his head from behind and he tries to shake off the budding headache that makes his breathing grate like sandpaper.

Asano and Kabuto draw further ahead.

Hokori dives to the side as he senses a flare of chakra coming in his direction. Rock bursts through the mud, creating spikes dividing Hokori and Yoroi from the other two genin.

xXx

The ground rocks again, this time Hokori falls against a tree, Yoroi slumping into the muddy ground. The pain in his shoulders is ceaseless screaming. He stares at Yoroi and can't help but think that if he kills his genin, maybe no one will know and he can make it back to Konoha in much, much less pain.

He would never actually do that though, so he lifts the man into a fireman carry and starts walking again. Asano... Asano is ahead with Kabuto. They'll be fine for now, probably. If (and that's a pretty big if ) Kabuto is actually a traitor, he seems to still be undercover, so he'll hopefully keep protecting Asano.

Hokori pauses less than a second to shake his head, that is very much not how that works. He needs to find them, now.

One of the Iwa-nin had a bear summon that is now roaring, and even though, logically, that a single bear doesn't pose a huge threat to a jonin. It's a terrifying sound.

Hokori pushes himself to start jogging, keeping an eye out for a flicker of Asano or Kabuto's chakra. If he can get a lock on their chakra then he can keep track of where they are. The world around him is still too bright, either from exhaustion or chakra depletion. He doesn't know is Asano or Kabuto had chakra restraining cuffs. It looked like Asano did, but they clearly hadn't been cleaned like they should've been. They might not have actually done anything, or they could have actually started sucking on her chakra, the way his had. If it was just a little, it wasn't a problem, but with Asano in such a bad state, she would need chakra to boost her along the way home.

The world rocks again, but Hokori only stumbles without falling.

He knows that it's almost night, the twilight making it all much harder to see. He's thankful for that though since it means that they're much less likely to be caught. They need to head South-West, approximately. He doesn't actually know where they are - he was unconscious while they were moved - but if they can find a patrol or tower then they'll be safe. It's hard to miss Fire Country, if you're on the continent and go South-West.

There's a flair of chakra, Asano's, and Hokori turns to run towards her. He still hasn't felt anything from Kabuto, but that's probably because his chakra control means that even if he was using it, that wouldn't guarantee that Hokori would feel it.

There's a cliff in front of him, and Hokori knows that Asano is on the top of it. That doesn't mean he has a way to get up though. He has some of his chakra back, and it'll start coming back faster and faster the longer he's out of chakra suppressors. How much chakra can he afford to spend on climbing? Not much if he wants to keep carrying Yoroi, he decides after a moment.

Asano's chakra moves further away. Hokori can't shout for her because drawing their captors attention would mean death at best, but he wants to scream. Instead, he turns and starts running along the bottom of the wall, looking for it to slope back downwards, or for a tree that's fallen against it. A path worn into it by a semi-local town? Anything.

There's a scream, and this time Hokori does recognise it. It's Kabuto, and it's come from approximately where Asano is.

Hokori pushes chakra to his feet, he can't rush with and mess this up. He can't afford to be any later.

One foot against the cliff face, then another. Chakra to his core to help keep him straight while he carries Yoroi. One foot then another. One foot after another as his shoulders scream in agony and the weight of Yoroi is heavy. Moving his chakra is like trying to scrape the last bits out of a bowl and the cutlery slipping, it feels like the awful sound that makes.

He's at the top through.

He starts running even though he just wants to stop and catch his breath against the pain.

One step then another. One foot after another. Find Asano. Find Kabuto. Find Konoha. The sun is almost completely gone and Hokori can smell blood. He stumbles into a tree but doesn't pause. He can't afford to, he needs to find his genin. He needs to get to them.

One step then another. One foot after another. Find Asano. Find Kabuto Find Konoha.

He can hear breathing, but his eyes aren't focusing enough. Asano is right around here, here chakra is still there, she's still alive.

He can't sense anyone else, even though he can tell that Kabuto had used chakra very nearby. It's a little worrying because it seems like his control flickers, Hokori can feel flecks of his chakra, but he can't feel Kabuto.

He turns towards where he can feel Asano's chakra.

Backlit against the last flames of the sky is Asano, kneeling bloody over Kabuto's body. A bear, one of the Iwa-nin's summons, is standing next to her, unmoving.

"Asano?" Hokoi whispers, Asano's head jerks up. Hokori's eyes finally focus and he can see that Asano got her hand on a kunai and is using it to cut out Kabuto's heart. His head is sitting, separate from his body, below the bear.

The sound of fighting is ongoing, but decreasing, and they need to move so they're out of range before the shinobi start looking for survivors.

Hokori takes a steadying breath as she pulls out Kabuto's heart with her bare hands and offers it to the muzzle of the bear standing beside her. They need to go, Kabuto is dead. When they get back to Konoha, Asano will go to T&I and they'll decide if it was in defense of Konoha, a mental break, or a malicious attack.

"We need to go, now ," Hokori says, approaching Asano slowly.

(This was his fault, she wasn't ready for a C-rank and because of that they were caught. They were caught and she was tortured. This was all his fault.)

Asano puts one hand up to hold him back as she stands and throws herself on top of the bear. She turns to look at him and gives him a shooing gesture. (It's so childish he could laugh if she didn't have her teammate's blood dripping off of her.)

"Hold on, I need to at least burn the body first."

Asano snaps her fingers, points at him, and nods her head. Hokori kneels over Kabuto's body, looking at the mess of blood and guts, and feeling a bit sick despite his ample experience with such things.

"I need your kunai to cut a seal into him, since we don't have any tags or paper," Hokori says, feeling a bit of relief when she hands over the kunai with ease.

Hokori slits the leg of Kabuto's trousers and pulls the fabric apart so his shin is bare to the world. Usually, Hokori would do this on the head or chest, but those are both unavailable. He uses the kunai to quickly cut into the skin, leave the marks for 'spread', 'material', 'fire', and 'contain' as the main elements of the seal.

It's a moderately difficult seal. It needs to burn the flesh, bone, and fabric, without too much smoke or spreading to the nearby land. Ideally, Hokori could stay and make sure it burns, could dig at least a small hole to bury the ashes in, make sure no trace remains. That's not an option now, and if Hokori tries to dig a hole he will be completely out of chakra.

(How did Asano get the bear summon to work with her - or maybe even sign with her?)

It doesn't take too long, despite the complexity, since it's one of the seals he's had to use most. He was alive during the 3rd shinobi war and he used it on many bodies, belonging to Konoha or otherwise. Orochimaru had taught it to him, Hokori wonders if Orochimaru used it to hide his misdeeds from Konoha. It's an unpleasant thought, but still better than the reminder that his genin is dead . Kabuto was an orphan, adopted late by one of the hospital directors. Kabuto wasn't close with his guardian, it had been done as a work of public service. Decreasing the number of orphans with the minimum amount of work. Hokori suspected the man would still be distressed.

(How did Asano manage to kill Kabuto?)

Once the seal is finished, not his neatest work but not the worst he's ever done either, he says,

"Asano, I don't have any chakra left, can you push some into it. You'll know when it's full so it's hard to mess up." He'd added in a few signs to the seal so would give a minuscule electric shock when it was full. Eventually (if Asano wasn't found guilty of killing a comrade and executed) Asano would instinctively know how much chakra to add to a seal. He was planning on teaching her the chakra measurements soon. A set of sizes used to guide how much chakra to pour into a seal. If he said 'halfway between 'second' and 'third' then Asano would know, at least approximately, how much to put in.

Asano nods and jumps off the bear, placing her hands on each side of the seal and letting in a trickle of chakra.

"You'll need more than that."

Asano gives him a hesitant look, and when more chakra starts pouring out he notices that Asano winces in pain.

(How did Asano even get permission to be an Academy Student? The first, first requirement is to be of sound mind and body . He'll have to make sure she gets whatever is causing that checked.)

She stands, wavering slightly before she pulls herself back up (slower now) onto the bears back. Kabuto's body burns before them.

"Alright, we're going to be travelling non-stop until we can get help," Hokori says, turning and starting to jog as fast as he can with Yoroi over his shoulder. The bear ambles along beside him. "You'll have to go to T&I when we get back to Konoha. In the meantime, we need to go as fast as possible." He glances at Asano, tiny atop the bear, over Yoroi. "Can Yoroi go in front of you so I can run faster?"

Asano's arm moves but Hokori can't see what her hand is doing, buried in the bear's fur. The bear makes a snuffing noise and Asano nods at him. He pauses for a movement, wincing as he lifts Yoroi up so he can lay across the back of the bear in front of Asano.

"Yoroi's not a traitor right?" He probably should've checked sooner whether Yoroi was at risk from Asano. She pauses before shaking her head and shrugging. He assumes that means no.

xXx

The forest gets deeper as they run, the night sky blocked by trees. If this mission had gone well, then Asano would be sent to climb the tree and report on the stars. It would be a good way for her to practice tree walking and reading the stars. Instead, he glances up at the slim stretch of moonlight, and thanks the Sage that it's not a new moon. Maybe they could stop now, sleep for the night and run more tomorrow. They could hunt for food in the morning.

Hokori doesn't know why they were targeted - and they were targeted. He doesn't know why Asano was so sure Kabuto was a traitor that she would commit treason to kill him. And she did commit treason. Even if she's right, she should've helped them all get home, and helped deliver him to T&I. Even if she's right, she will be punished for this.

Hokori stumbles, a tree root and exhaustion working together. When he stands, Asano puts a hand on his shoulder.

'R - E - S - T' She taps onto him.

"I can't, we don't know why we were captured, so we don't know if they'll be trying to hunt us down."

She looks at him, her face shadowed in the dark so he can't read her expression. After a moment she nods though, and they continue on. Yoroi still hasn't awoken.

xXx

Hokori can sense familiar chakra nearby, he's not sure who it is though, and he doesn't know where they are. He thinks they're friendly, but he doesn't know. He's too tired. His whole body aches with exhaustion and his shoulders send stinging pains through him with every moment.

There's an owl hoot - the noise from one Konoha jonin to another.

A shiver runs through Hokori. Almost there, almost done. It takes far too much effort to lift his hands to his mouth and hoot back.

Ahead, four figures drop out of the trees. Tsume Inuzuka and her ninken, Anko, and one of the branch member Hyuuga.

"Got any followers?" Tsume asks, her ninken approaching Asano's bear slowly.

"Not that I know of, we've been going for a while but I wasn't sure if they would follow." Asano waves at the dog and makes a happy humming noise.

"Alright, is your third nearby?"

"Kabuto's dead."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Tsume approaches him, far slower than a jonin's usual speed so as to avoid scaring him. Behind her, Anko pulls out a seal and activates it. It's probably the 'green' seal for emergencies, meaning at least one member of the team was found alive and able to communicate.

"Asuka, can you see anything?" Tsume asks, turning to the Hyuuga. Their chakra flares ever so slightly as the byakugan actives and for a moment no one but Asano moves, so they don't distract the Hyuuga - Asuka.

"I can't see anyone, though Team 13's left a pretty clear path."

Hokori glances behind them, and yeah, Asuka's right.

"You look pretty rough girlie, you alright?" Anko asks quietly from Asano's sign. Hokori glances to see her open her mouth. "Oh that's not good!" Asano reaches to Anko, putting her fingers onto Anko's shoulder. Hokori turns his attention away, back to Tsume who's checking over Yoroi.

"Do you know what's wrong with him?" She asks, taking his pulse while her ninken sniffs around.

"He's got a chakra absorption bloodline so the chakra suppressors drained him."

Tsume's ninken whines at the same moment that Anko gasps. Both Tsume and Anko jerk their heads towards him and he makes the higher level hand signs for 'INTEL - UNCONFIRMED'

"Asano's told me that Kabuto was a traitor. I don't know what happened in between our escape, but Asano killed him. We'll get the details figured out when we get back to Konoha." Hokori says when it occurs to him that should he die for whatever reason - perhaps even killed by Asano - then the truth of the situation needs to be known. This way, at least three other shinobi (and a ninken who can speak) are aware of the situation.

Tsume nods and lifts one of Yoroi's arms before letting it go and watching it drop.

"He's not doing well," she say while checking Yoroi's eyes. "He's got extreme chakra depletion and considering it's been a while since he was in the chakra restraints... He'll have to go straight to the hospital when we get back to check his bones and muscles. For the time being," she glances at Asano and then to him. "You two need to rest, we can't do long, but at least three hours."

Hokori thinks about arguing. He thinks about fighting against it. If Yoroi needs a hospital then Hokori's wants him there ASAP. That's not how things work though. It'll do no one any good if they pass out.

"Can one of you get Yoroi back to Konoha?" He asks, Tsume looks over the group again.

"We need myself and Asuka to make sure no one is getting close, and Anko is our ranged fighter. I don't think it would be a good idea. Konoha's at least 50 hours away, and that would be at Gai's pace. I can patch Yoroi up, but he's either going to make it home or he's not. Hokori, you can use Anko's stuff." Tsume turns to Asano and looks at her, long and hard. "You can use my stuff. I have an extra pair of clothes you can use as well. They won't fit but it'll be something, but you should at least clean up a bit first."

It's a fair assessment, Asano has blood splattered up her arms, cuts under his shirt, and she doesn't have any trousers. She nods and slides off the bear's back.

"Is our agreement met?" The bear asks, it's voice deep and unsettling. Asano glances around and nods, the bear disappears in a puff of smoke.

"What's that about?" Anko asks, pulling a scroll out of a pouch. Asano reaches over once more and starts tapping on her arm. He can't tell what she's saying, but Anko pauses to understand. "Why you though?" She asks.

"Oi! None of that now, reports and stories can come later. Get cleaned up, changed, eat, and asleep!" Tsume growls, throwing a scrap of wet cloth at Asano. It's a pretty common bit of equipment among jonin. It's rare that you can actually take a wash while in the forest, but having an old bit of clothing or bandage to wipe down your face, pits, and hands can make a huge difference.

xXx

In the morning Asano looks at where the bear had stood the night before and Hokori can tell she misses being able to ride. After a moment she sighs and starts tapping on Tsume's hand, receiving a roll of bandages to tie up the excessive sleeves and legs. Hokori had been planning on waiting until Asano was asleep before talking with the other three. Almost as soon as he'd sat down he'd passed out. Anko had woken him up to pass over a blanket he could use to keep warm.

Asuka was a typically compact Hyuuga, not much taller than Asano, but more than twice her width. Hokori didn't recognise her from jonin meetings, so either she was fairly new, part of ANBU, or a chunin. He thought about asking, it was always good to have connections.

Kabuto was dead though. The thought echoed through him every time he tried to think of anything else. Kabuto was dead.

"We need to move soon," Tsume says, and Hokori jerks a little, realising she'd been looking at. "If we go at a good pace today then we can get back to Konoha in four days."

Hokori realises he doesn't actually know how long it's been since they got their mission - how long they were captive for. He doesn't even know where they are really. If it took four days to get back to Konoha, going straight, then tracking must've taken longer. Even if they could get support out to where they'd been ambushed fairly quickly... Then he remembers the tracking seal he had gotten after Orochimaru's betrayal.

The lack of trust from the village had been palpable, that decade ago. He often forgot about those times, he didn't want to remember. Danzo had built the seal into his skin with the help of Hiashi Hyuuga, made as a tracker and long-distance kill switch. He didn't know how it worked, he wasn't allowed to inspect it fully so it had been placed on his upper back.

It might've saved Yoroi's life, for them to be able to find him so quickly, but he was still bitter. It placed him in danger, to have a kill switch, no matter how much he trusted the Hokage (he did) or Danzo (he very much didn't). There were traitors in Konoha, even someone angry enough over Orochimaru's betrayal and wanted what they thought of as revenge.

Hokori lets his thoughts drift on the bitter subject as they start to run, matching pace with himself and Asano would doubtlessly be the slowest. Tsume was carrying Yoroi, since Anko was the tank of the group and couldn't be burdened if they got attacked, and Yoroi's legs would drag if he was carried by Asuka.

"Alright, hold on," Tsume says just a second later. "Asuka, can you carry Asano?" Asuka nods. "Excellent, Asano, get on her back. Sorry, I forgot you were a genin." Tsume's looking a bit more green at the reminder - Asuka is too.

They're running again.

xXx

That night Hokori listens with half an ear as Asano taps on Tsume's arm and Tsume talks about Kiba's training. She doesn't get into any details, just talking about generally known stuff, like his team, teacher, and D-rank mission hilarity.

"Yeah, he's a good kid, Kiba," Tsume says in response to something Asano must be tapping. "Yeah, a troublemaker too," she admits and Asano grins. Something painfully tight in his chest loosens just the tiniest bit.

xXx

Now that he's less exhausted, he wakes up every time Asano awakes up from a nightmare. She doesn't scream, or jerk upright. She doesn't even gasp each time. It's silent but her chakra trips. It's a weird sensation where the smooth flow of chakra while she sleeps disappears for a second, before returning stronger for a second, then slowing down to normal. If Hokori could stop tracking her chakra, like a child listening to a parent's heartbeat, he probably wouldn't even notice. He probably wouldn't strain his ears to hear, and end up realising she's tapping against fabric.

("T-R-A-I-T-O-R," Asano taps again and again, every time she wakes up. Hokori can't decide whether it makes him more inclined to believe she had a mental breakdown or not.)

He can tell that when each of the others is on guard, they notice as well. No one says anything.

xXx

The sight of Konoha doesn't make anything better, but it sure as hell doesn't make anything worse.

Notes:

Trigger warning notes:
- Asano is tortured
- She also bites off her own tongue
- Hokori (the POV character) is in pain throughout the chapter as an effect of their capture
- Asano kills Kabuto and it is described graphically

***
I never meant to leave From Outside Eyes for so long, but this chapter was hard. I'm still not happy with it, but every time I put it to the side to work on later though, it takes weeks for me to come back. So, I decided to upload it as is.

Please leave a comment.

Chapter 56: Speak Now - Inoichi Yamanaka

Summary:

"We have a situation. One of our teams - Team 13 - was captured and one of its genin tortured. As they were leaving, the genin told Hokori that another one of the other genin was a traitor. During the escape, the tortured genin killed the accused. I need you to speak the genin, learn about the situation. Speak to Hokori and the other genin as well. I want to know what happened as soon as possible."

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Inoichi sees the Hokage on a fairly regular basis, as both the Head of the Analysis Team, a jonin, and a clan head. So he's a bit surprised to be called in. Outside of the Hokage's office is the usual ANBU using a genjutsu to pretend to be a secretary (or maybe a henge, if they don't mind doing menial work, he doesn't bother to tell which one it is). When he gets sent in, Anko Mitarashi's old teammates - Hokori Isan - is there.

"Hokage-sama?"

Inoichi doesn't watch Hokori Isan, but he does recall as much as he can. He hadn't been the head of Analysis when Orochimaru went Missing but he'd been part of the work to investigate the loyalty of his students. All three of them had passed, he knew their third teammate, Hibiki Hyuuga, died a little over a year ago on a mission gone wrong. Something had been strange with that mission - he remembers that. There hadn't been any proof or anyone who seemed to be the culprit though. It'd been put on his (ever so long) list of suspect situations.

"We have a situation. One of our teams - Team 13 - was captured and one of its genin tortured." The Hokage says, and Inoichi has heard of this sort of situation before, in his years as head of Analysis (almost a decade now), but not often. "As they were leaving, the genin told Hokori that another one of the other genin was a traitor. During the escape, the tortured genin killed the accused." That. That was not something Inoichi had heard before. He knew of shinobi, like Itachi Uchiha, who had a mental break down and killed comrades, and torture victims were particularly likely to break down. But-

What an awful situation.

"I need you to speak the genin, learn about the situation. Speak to Hokori and the other genin as well. I want to know what happened as soon as possible."

"Yessir."

"The genin in question, Asano Sakurai, was escorted by Anko and Tsume to the main Intelligence building while the other one is in the hospital, unconscious from chakra exhaustion."

When Ino had started at the academy Inoichi had checked on each of her classmates. Asano Sakurai had been among them. He'd approved her to join the force less than a year ago. Asano Sakurai couldn't be older than 13.

Inoichi felt nothing but contempt for those who tortured children, even shinobi children.

"Oh yes, and Sakurai is currently without the majority of her tongue, so you'll need to work around that until you can decide if it's worth replacing." (Whether she's going to be alive long enough for it to be worth a medic-nin's time to fix it.)

"Yessir."

"You are dismissed. Hokori will meet you once he has been debriefed and checked over by medical. A messenger will be sent with the mission summary."

"Yessir," Inoichi nods and leaves immediately. Normally he wouldn't be quite so solemn but, by the Sage. What a situation.

xXx

"Midori," Inoichi says, passing the Analysis Team break area where Midori Nakamura is talking with Mozuku from Ibiki Morino's team. "We have a new, high priority assignment. Get me the files for the Sakurai family, shinobi and civilian. Mozuku, tell Ibiki that I need him to visit when he gets the chance." He keeps walking even as the two chunin stand to do as he says.

Further down the hallway, Oyone and Ranka are discussing a strange body. One of the mystery shinobi who'd been attacking over the past three to six years in increasing frequency. As of a two and a half years ago, there'd been reports of strange physical traits that disappeared when the shinobi died. A couple of live ones had been brought in and dissected.

"Oyone, go to the hospital and find out the situation for Team 13, only one of the genin should be in there at the moment but get their files and check on the jonin if you can. Ranka, I don't need you yet, but be on standby."

"Yessir," both chorus, Oyone scowling at the idea of trying to get files from the medics.

In his office, he pulls out the summary of strange situations, each one a mission number, unclassified summary, and shinobi involved. Over the past 20 years that he's been in the Intelligence Division there are half a dozen that list Yoko Sakurai - her identity was unconfirmed on some, as they were ANBU missions that entered the rumour mill. One lists Taro Sakurai and another lists Shoichi Sakurai. It's an unusually large number for one family, but if Yoko Sakurai was in ANBU then that would explain it.

"Sir?" Mawashi Dokuraku says after knocking on the door and leaning in. "Anko Mitarashi and Tsume Inuzuka brought in a genin, Asano Sakurai. I've placed her in Waiting Room 4."

"Good, make a note that she'll be going to light interrogation and get Kumadori to check her over, make sure she's not about to die."

"Yessir. She's also on suicide watch as Tsume Inuzuka reported she attempted to kill herself by biting off her tongue while being tortured."

Inoichi suppresses a wave of nausea at the thought of a girl Ino's age willingly biting off her own tongue.

"Who's watching her?"

"I've put one of Shun's grunts on it, Saburou Hirano."

"Fine, make sure she eats too, I don't know how long it'll be until I'm talking to her and I want her to be ready. This is top priority right now so make sure everyone knows."

"Yessir."

"Dismissed."

With a nod, Mawashi Dokuraku closes the door. Inoichi makes a note to have Midori Nakamura get the mission files for the eight strange situations involving Sakurai and the mission that killed Hibiki Hyuuga.

He should probably eat before Hokori Isan arrives, and let Shikaku know so that he can get the files ready for whatever happens next. Choza should be told so that he can have Ino and Shikamaru over for dinner.

He grabs a glass and runs through the hand signs to fill it with water. He takes slow sips, noting Asano Sakurai's waiting room number and what he's told people to do so far. He needs to get the files on Asano Sakurai's teammates and close friends, her teammates' close friends, why she was chosen for a team with such a high risk of capture. Team 13 was usually a senior genin team. He would need to check Hokori Isan's loyalty as well, and her academy teacher - Iruka Umino

"The files you requested, sir," Midori Nakamura says, handing over a stack and accepting his new list of requested files.

"We'll be expecting Hokori Isan at some point. He should be put in Interview Room 3. Send one of the senior genin to tell Choza Akimichi that myself and Shikaku Nara will be busy tonight."

"Yessir."

"Then send them to the Hokage tower and get two - no - three - copies of the mission report, one for Shikaku, Ibiki, and myself. I'm going to get food, leave the files on my desk but come find me if Ibiki or Hokori arrive. Send someone to tell the Sakurai family that their daughter's mission went wrong but she's alive and with Analysis."

They wouldn't be happy to be unable to see her, but it was better to know she was with Analysis instead of the main T&I division or dead.

"Yessir."

"You'll need to schedule interviews will all of them, but not until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. Also this situation is classified so I don't want any gossip out around it yet."

"Yessir."

"Dismissed."

xXx

Inoichi flicked through Asano Sakurai's file. Father in the force (Shoichi Sakurai: chunin, none, ninjutsu and weaponry), mother retired (Yoko Sakurai: rank classified, bloodline classified, focus classified).

Her oldest brother, Taro Sakurai was labelled Missing but presumed dead (Taro Sakurai: D-rank Missing-nin, none, taijutsu and genjutsu). Her second brother, Hideo Sakurai was still active in the force (Hideo Sakurai: genin, Mokuton, ninjutsu and taijutsu). Her younger sister was a civilian, having left the academy without graduating, but doing quite well in school (Kimiko Sakurai: civilian, none, none).

Living with the family was also an uncle, Yohei Sakurai, strangely someone he didn't recognise with even passing familiarity (Yohei Sakurai: rank classified, bloodline classified, focus classified). Perhaps that wasn't surprising since the man was clearly ANBU. He made a note to see if he could get Yoko Sakurai and Yohei Sakurai's ANBU files, the Hokage would provide them if he thought they were relevant.

Asano Sakurai was noted as needing authority training. Her pre-graduation review suggested she could work towards a long term goal (seal mastery) while using caution, showing a high level of maturity. Young genin tended to change a lot during their early time in the force so he'd have to speak with Iruka Umino and Hokori Isan to get an idea of any changes. She wasn't considered a sleeper risk, and her mission tracker suggests that this had been her first mission out of the village.

He added Sakura Haruno and Shikamaru Nara to his list to interview.

xXx

Inoichi has Team 13's files in hand when he enters Interview Room 3. Hokori Isan is sitting on one of the plush sofas, looking through an adventure romance book written about a couple of undercover shinobi from seperate nations, both working in the same cafe. Ino had bought it for him for christmas when she was eight.

Hokori Isan looks up from the book when the door opens,

"Inoichi," he closes the book. He sits, eyes trained on Inoichi. This is a delicate situation. Asano Sakurai may have been the one who was physically tortured, but Hokori Isan was psychologically tortured and detained. The man clearly hadn't been given a chance to relax since then.

"Hokori, my sympathies for the situation."

Hokori Isan nods and looks away, Inoichi wonders how much he blames himself, if he blames himself at all. It would be an understandable reaction to consider himself responsible. As far as his report suggests, he isn't responsible for it at all. Unfortunately fact have little to do with how people feel

Inoichi sits across from Hokori Isan, looking through the files for a moment so that he can get used to Inoichi's presence.

The missions report had been typed up, a sign of how high priority it was. Lots of lines have asterixis, since there hasn't been time to source it and compile an index yet. Inoichi has two topics to focus on: is Asano Sakurai a threat to Konoha, and how did this happen?

The former is the priority for now, everything else can be returned to later.

"Hokori Isan, do you understand that this is an interview, not a therapy session, and as such your answers and comments may be recorded?"

"Yes."

"Are you the jonin-sensei of Team 13?"

"Yes."

"Team 13 is an infiltration team, with a focus on international infiltration for chunin exams?"

"Correct."

"Why was Asano Sakurai, a 12 year old, newly graduated genin with a problem with authority and major health issues chosen for your team?"

"I have no idea ." Hokori looks at Inoichi, dead in the eye. "I've asked the Hokage that myself multiple times and I was treated as if I was trying to shirk my responsibilities. Asano and Kabuto didn't like each other from the start and I said that was dangerous, given the situations they would be in. I was told that if Asano could reach chunin in the next exam she could leave the team."

"The chunin exam that's coming up, in Konoha?" That would require Asano Sakurai to pass the chunin exam as a rookie . For a genin without highly advanced offensive and defensive physical skills that seemed… unlikely. Given Asano Sakurai's grades in taijutsu at the academy, it was close to a pipe dream.

"Yeah," Hokori Isan scoffs and Inoichi can understand why.

"You mentioned your concerns to the Hokage?"

" Yes ."

Right, so it wasn't a case of sabotage."

"Were Asano's taijutsu skills up to chunin level before the start of the mission?

"I don't know," Hokori Isan looks down at his hands which twitch for a moment. He seems to curl in on himself. "I don't know how train normal genin. Kabuto and Yoroi were both at chunin level when I took over as their teacher, Kabuto could've been a tokubetsu with a couple months of work on his medical skills." Hokori Isan pauses, but Inoichi lets the silence linger. It feels like Hokori Isan has more to say. After a long few seconds, "Asano's skills were nowhere near as good, but it would take years for her to catch up to them. She's not a taijutsu type. Her basic three were good though, and her understanding of sealing was impressive."

"So why did you choose to take a C-rank?"

"I'm a jonin and Kabuto and Yoroi were both chunin . Even if Asano did nothing it should've been fine."

"Genin's first C-ranks have a tendency to wrong," Inoichi says watching as something close to a snarl appears on Hokori Isan's face.

"Missions go wrong all the time," Hokori Isan leans forward, but doesn't stand. His face is pale and his eyes bloodshot. "Caravan guarding missions get attacked by bandits, maybe even missing-nin. They aren't specifically targeted by an ambush of jonin and chunin level foreign-nin on Fire Country soil!"

"Yes, that was unusual, we'll come back to that," Inoichi nodded. Hokori Isan's face smooths out suddenly and he leans back in his seat.

"Team 13 is frankly overpowered for a C-rank, but Asano needed to complete some C-rank missions before she can take part in the chunin exams. Also I hoped that allowing Kabuto to see Asano working as a shinobi would help him respect her more."

"I see. And how is Asano's relationship with Yoroi?

"What relationship," Hokori Isan laughs, "I let Kabuto and Yoroi train independently, since forcing them to train with Asano would be a waste of time and make them resent her. They've sparred a few times, they might've had a conversation or two when I wasn't there. He's a decade older than her though." He rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders. "I don't think Asano liked him. I don't know if it was because he spent time with Kabuto though, or something else. Yoroi was close with Misumi though, before he died. She was a non-entity to Yoroi, as far as I could tell."

"Alright, can you elaborate on Asano and Kabuto's relationship?

"Yeah," Hokori Isan looks away from the wall and Inoichi realises he can smell the sweat and dirt on the man. Had he even been allowed to wash since returning to Konoha? Probably not. "Asano and Kabuto are… were, as far as I could tell, very similar. They were both incredibly smart, but preferred to play it down. I didn't know Kabuto well when the team first formed, but I think they were both very natural shinobi. They both lied easily and well, I can only recall catching them a few times, usually because I already knew the truth."

"Could you tell now, when Asano or Kabuto lied?" Inoichi asks, and watches as Hokori's face twitches, amusement and frustration perhaps? It was an important question, regardless of Hokori's answer.

"Maybe?" He says, "not reliably. Asano can be hard, she can be so blunt that people don't expect her to lie. I could probably tell though, if she's lying. Kabuto? Probably not. He- I never knew him well. But-" Hokori Isan goes silent and stands up. He grabs one of the books off the shelf and flicks through it. "Kabuto lied like he breathed. Hibiki might've been able to tell, with his Byakugan."

Inoichi makes a note to pay particular attention to Hibiki Hyuuga's death. If Asano Sakurai's accusation was accurate, then the man's death might've been to protect Kabuto Yakushi's secret.

"Can you return to Asano and Kabuto's relationship?"

"Right, yeah. They disliked each other from the start. I think Kabuto disliked her for putting missions on pause- he needed them for rent after all. He was condescending to Asano, which is probably why she disliked him. There didn't seem to be anything deeper. Sometimes Asano acted as if he disgusted her, but," Hokori shrugs, almost helpless, "I couldn't tell why."

"I see," Inoichi says, "and can you tell me about your capture and escape?"

xXx

A note on her file informed him that Asano Sakurai had been moved to Light Interrogation 7, like he'd asked. He watches her for a few minutes She sits at the table, staring at the wall. Her hand taps against the table in the same pattern over and over again. 'T - R - A - I -T- O -R - / - T - R - A - I -' Possibly a sign of insanity, or maybe a reminder. He flips through the file he picked up along the way.

She was in the same class as Ino. He doesn't want to get his daughter involved, but if she's such a fresh genin then she probably doesn't know that many older shinobi. She's Yoko Sakurai's daughter. He can't tell if that makes him more inclined to believe anything one way or another, but it's definitely interesting. Her father is an only slightly above average chunin named Shoichi Sakurai... his face is familiar though. Almost eerily so. He looks like Shikaku, but his background says that his mother was a clan-less kunoichi and his father is unlisted. Maybe the father was a Nara.

She kept a book, and her skill in seals secret. Her best friend would be good to interview, once she gets back from a mission. He'll need to speak with her academy teacher as well. He'll interview her family as well, though her oldest brother is listed as MIA as of a few years ago. The other brother has a surprisingly redacted file for a genin. The younger sister had done well enough at the academy, and had decent grades at the civilian school, seemingly unremarkable.

Asano Sakurai passed all of her classes with moderate grades. Her academics were on the higher end, her Taijutsu on the lower end. Her Kunoichi Studies teacher said she disliked the class but did okay overall. She was noted to be good at infiltration when she bothered to try.

xXx

"Hello, Asano, I'm Inoichi Yamanaka," Inoichi says, smiling at her as he closes the door behind him. Her legs are cuffed to the chair which in turn is chained to the floor, and her hands are rather loosely chained to the table. She was listed as low risk, given her genin-level skills and an apparent non-violence towards anyone besides Kabuto Yakushi.

'I - N - O - / - D - A - D - ?' She taps out against the table, tilting her head to emphasis her question.

"That's right," he gives her another, warmer smile as he sits down. "Do you know Konoha Basic Sign?"

She nods and signs 'CONFIRMED'.

"Excellent, now can you give me the full report of what happened during your mission." It's definitely not ideal to have this happen in Sign, since that's clearly not something she's used to using in conversation, so it'll be harder to tell if she's thinking up a lie or just trying to remember the right signs.

'GUARD - MISSION - TEAM' she changes into tapping to give specifics that don't exist univerally in Konoha Basic Sign, '1 - 3 - LEAD - H - O - K - O - R - I - TEAMMATES - K - A - B - U - T - O - AND - Y - O - R - O - I' She pauses for a second. 'REQUIRE - INCLUDE - L - A - S - T - / - N - A - M -E - ?'

"Are you asking if you need to include their name?" Inoichi guesses, trying to decipher the question. When someone has used Konoha Basic Sign (KBS) long enough then there's enough practice and slang for people who work together to communicate in only KBS. Asano Sakurai is not at that level. The question was clear enough though.

Asano nods.

"Don't worry about the last names, just keep doing."

'MISSION - SUCCESS - RETURN_TO_KONOHA,' Asano pauses and looks at Inoichi to check he's understood.

"The mission succeeded, and you headed back to Konoha," he says, nodding.

'REQUIRE - D - E - T - A - I - L - S - ?'

"No, I don't need the details on the successful part of the mission now, though I will need it later. Please go from returning to Konoha."

'AMBUSH - UNKNOWN - ENEMY'

"You were ambushed by an unknown enemy," Inoichi repeats back and Asano Sakurai nods.

"10 - SHINOBI - RANK - UNKNOWN," Asano pauses before adding, 'G - R - E - E - N - GENIN - NEGATIVE'

"There were 10 shinobi of unknown rank, none of whom were green genin." Before she can continue, Inoichi shows her a sign, "this is the sign for green genin." She gives him a perfunctory smile, repeating the sign back before she continues.

'ATTACK - FRONTLINE - 2 - SHINOBI - AND - ATTACK - JONIN - 3 - SHINOBI'

"They attacked your frontline, who's the frontline," Inoichi knows that Yoroi is the close range frontline, but Asano is supposed to be the long range frontline, so is she including herself?

'FRONTLINE - Y - O - R - O - I,' Asano pauses, 'JONIN - H - O - K - O - R - I,' another pause, 'MEDIC - K - A - B - U - T - O'

Upon signing Kabuto's name a flash of revulsion crosses her face, the sort of speed that he might've missed it if he wasn't paying attention

'GREEN - GENIN - MYSELF' She uses the sign he'd just shown her

"The frontline was Yoroi, Hokori was the jonin, Kabuto was the medic, and you were the green genin." She nods. "Alright, continue."

'5 - ATTACK - FRONTLINE - AND - JONIN' Asano pauses, '3 - ATTACK - MYSELF - 2 - ATTACK - MEDIC'

"Three of them attacked you, and two of them attacked Kabuto," Inoichi repeats, Asano Sakurai nods.

'GUARD - MEDIC - COMMAND'

"You were commanded to guard Kabuto?" Inoichi checks, but shakes her head.

'F - I - R -S -T - COMMAND - MEDIC - DEAD - L - A - S - T'

"The first rule is that the medic dies last?"

'CONFIRMED'

Right, her best friend was a medic, so she'd probably talked, or at least heard of that rule.

'MYSELF - GENIN - 3 - ENEMY - CHUNIN'

"You are a genin, while your enemies were all chunin."

'UNCLEAR - ONE'

"Except for maybe one?" Inoichi guesses, Asano Sakurai nods.

'CONFIRMED - PROTECT - MEDIC - B - U - T - GENIN - FIGHT - CHUNIN - NOT - SUCCESS'

"You wanted to, or you were trying to protect Kabuto?"

'W - A - N -T, ' Asano Sakurai pauses and frowns, 'REPORT - W - R - I - T - E - ?'

"You want to write the report?"

Asano nods.

'IDEA - SIGN - H - A - R -D'

"Just for this part of the report, or all of it?"

'IDEA - FIGHT - / - MYSELF - W - R - I - T - E - QUICK'

"Alright, we can give it a shot," Inoichi says after a second. While having it written would normally make it harder to read her. Compared to signing and tap code though? She's more used to writing so it'll be both faster, and she'll give more hints than she does while trying to sign. He'd forgotten how many signs are learned after t he academy, it's like trying to hear a report given by a four year old.

xXx

'I wanted to protect Kabuto, as the medic of the group, so I was trying to keep an eye on him. Take a kunai for him, or get his attention if he's going to get hit from the back.' Asano writes, Inoichi has Shimon Hijiri reading it over her shoulder while he tries to read her body language. 'I'm losing though, and pretty quickly too. I'm basically just dodging and trying to keep fighting as I take hits. I kawarimi into the fray and then henge into one of the people fighting Kabuto, but they figure it out almost immediately. I use explosive seals and burn one of them, but I've also been poisoned by something, I think, I was getting really tired and everything was blurry, like I was about to pass out.'

'I try to explode one of the guys and get thrown against a tree and I see as Kabuto's throat gets slit. And then he heals it. While he's fighting.'

Asano looks up at Inoichi as the chunin reads it out. Inoichi doesn't react, though his thoughts are faster than a body flicker. This could have been a hallucination caused by the poison, or just something she made up. Or it could be true.

'I pass out. When I wake up, I'm alone in a stone cell, chained to the ceiling, and I can't do any jutsu.' She pauses again, and her heart is racing, but if what comes next is what Inoichi is expecting, that's not much of a surprise. He thinks about telling her to go back to signing, but she's actually far more expressive while writing than he would've expected.

'One of them, I can't remember her name, asked for information on Konoha. Hokori and I both said no. I don't know where Kabuto was, and I didn't know where Yoroi was at the time, though I learned he was unconscious, later. Then they took me to a room across from Hokori's and,' She stops and Inoichi is reminded once more that she's a month younger than Ino. She's a child, even if she's a genin as well.

'One of the shinobi, a guy this time, hurt me, to try to make Hokori tell them something.' She pauses and looks up at Inoichi before writing, 'Do I have to go into details?'

"You might need to later, so we can help you recover," he reassures her, even if it might be a lie, "but not yet. What did you do while this was happening?"

'I prayed.'

"To who?"

'Jashin, the god of pain and suffering.' Shimon Hijiri pauses while reading it as she adds more, 'It seemed appropriate. At least someone should get something out of the situation, and hey, maybe he'd appreciate it.'

Right, so now Inoichi has to learn about this 'Jashin'. But later.

"What happened next?"

'I bit off my tongue. I though-' ' Asano and the chunin pause and Inoichi watches as she crosses out the last word, 'hoped I would die. Instead they called Kabuto who didn't even try to reattach my tongue.' She pauses, huffing and looking to the side. (Not even a teenager , Inoichi is reminded.)

' He just stopped the bleeding and healed it. They stopped through so,/ ' Asano shrugs, as if her tongue was a fair trade. It might've been. 'I fell asleep at some point. Hokori came in and woke me up, I told him that Kabuto was a traitor. We left, but were separated.'

This is the part that Inoichi cares about. If she lies here, then she'll die for it. Nothing is more important than whether she tells the truth. Asano pauses before she writes, pulling her thoughts together judging by the look on her face.

'A bear approached me. She wanted me to sign on with her, and I agreed. If she would help me get home and kill Kabuto. She was willing to, so I signed her scroll. We killed Kabuto, and then Hokori arrived. I rode on the bear, Akane, until we met with Anko, Tsume, and Asuka. Then they helped us get to Konoha and now I'm here.'

"Was Kabuto your first kill?" Inoichi asks, watching Asano's face. She doesn't seem to be feeling as much guilt as he would expect, everyone has different levels of empathy, of course, but nothing he'd seen suggested she had limited levels of empathy.

'I don't know. I might've killed one of the shinobi during the initial fight, or during our escape, I definitely stabbed someone on our way out.' Asano was almost refreshingly expressive compared to some of the senior shinobi he'd interrogated. She felt more confused than guilty, but mostly determined.

"Why did you kill Kabuto?"

'He was a traitor. I didn't know where Hokori was.' She pauses then puts down the brush without continuing.

"Why didn't you wait until you returned to Konoha?" Inoichi asks, watching a wealth of expressions flash over her face

'I thought about it. While I was,' she pauses, 'waiting.' She didn't have to clarify where she was waiting. 'I was scared.' She stops again, takes a deep breath and Inoichi realises that she does feel guilty. She'd already decided though. So she followed through. 'I didn't know if I trusted Hokori. I do now. He didn't say anyt-' The brush jerks in her hand as she crosses it out.

She begrudged Hokori Isan for not stopping her torture, understandable even if Hokori Isan did make the correct decision.

'I was scared.' She repeats. 'When Hokori disappeared- Without pause she shifts. 'If we got back to Konoha, just Kabuto and I? He's a good liar. A really good liar. And between a green genin and him? A green genin who was just-' she only pauses only for a second this time, ' tortured? This way, even if I die, he's already taken care of. Kabuto's death can't be undone, even if no one believes me.'

Inoichi knows now, that they're dealing with someone much more dangerous with a traitor. Asano is loyal to Konoha, but she'll do what she thinks is right. That's good if she has good judgment, if she has the strength to back it up. It can be equally dangerous through. She might do things that she shouldn't if what she believes is incorrect, or misled.

Still, shinobi like Asano Sakurai loyal to Konoha, and a great resource.

(Danzo Shimura was loyal to Konoha too.)

xXx

Inoichi waits patiently while the Hokage reads through his findings. It'd been a little over a week and while there was more to look into, the rest of it would focus on Kabuto Yakushi instead of Asano Sakurai. As it was, her punishment would be for acting without instruction, since Kabuto Yakushi had been revealed to at least likely have been a traitor. It was hard to tell since parts of it reeked of Danzo Shimura's involvement. He denied everything, so as a traitor Kabuto Yakushi would be remembered.

"Do we know who 'Kabuto Yakushi' was working for?" Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi asks, looking up from the papers.

"No, Yoroi Akado admitted to betraying Konoha at Kabuto's request, under duress, but he wasn't able to give much information. He clearly wasn't trusted." Inoichi wants to talk about how creepy it is that Yoroi Akado refuses to believe that Kabuto Yakushi is dead. It's clearly related to the healing Asano Sakurai mentioned, and honestly he pities Yoroi Akado for his fear. He can understand it though, since Kabuto Yakushi's healing abilities seem to have resembled Tsunade Senju's. He wouldn't trust her to be dead without having seen the body either. He keeps his mouth closed though, since speaking would suggest that Tsunade Senju was Kabuto Yakushi's master.

"Is it possible that Hibiki's death is related?"

Inoichi thought about Hibiki Hyuuga, Hokori Isan's now deceased genin teammate. He hadn't known the man as anything more than an acquaintance, but his death had come as a surprise. He'd been uncommonly social for a Hyuuga, and excellent at infiltration despite his byakugan.

"I suspect that both Misumi and Hibiki's deaths are related. I've spoken with Yoroi about it, he doesn't seem to know everything about the situation. It looks like one or both of them discovered or suspected Kabuto's treachery."

"I see," the Hokage nods slowly, "perhaps we are lucky that Asano killed him when she did."

Inoichi nods, and privately he agrees. It seems unlikely that a spy of Kabuto Yakushi's skill didn't suspect something. Unless Asano Sakurai was a much better liar than most genin, it seems likely Team 13 would have all died on their return without her.

"What is your opinion of Asano Sakurai?" the Hokage asks, which was a rather odd question. She was a loyal Konoha genin, but he hadn't noticed anything particularly interesting about her…

"Iruka Umino-sensei seemed a bit worried about her. She may have lower than average empathy, but is very loyal to Konoha."

"Like her mother then," the Hokage nods, lessening Inoichi's confusion somewhat. Another Yoko Sakurai would be something worth the Hokage's interest.

"If her medical section was thinner I'd almost be willing to recommend her for ANBU," he laughed slightly, there was no way she'd even make it to jonin with her health. "She's probably going to need some good therapy after this mission, and I wouldn't want her to become a chunin too soon. She needs to learn to follow instructions, how to do as she's told and no more ."

The Hokage nods, eyes scanning over the report again.

"You're dismissed, Inoichi, please let me know when you know more about Kabuto and how he remained unnoticed."

"Yessir," Inoichi bows, thoughts already on taking Ino out for dinner now that he's no working until midnight.

Notes:

I learned new things this chapter, like Inoichi isn't the head of T&I, but rather of the analysis division of T&I. Also, I could honestly write 20k for this chapter, but I'll leave it at this so we can move on. Please let me know of any questions you have so I can make sure to cover them in later chapters! Also, there's another chapter on AO3 for Original Characters to summarise who the characters in T&I are.

There was a formatting problem with this chapter, I tried to fix it, but please let me know if you notice anything!

Chapter 57: New Growth - Hiruzen Sarutobi

Notes:

Look my dudes, it's been ages. Soz. There's a summary at the start of the last chapter.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The hat on his head sits heavy when Hiruzen welcomes Inoichi into his office. He'd gotten quick summary reports over the course of the investigation, but the findings had been significant and required a full report.

"We still need to wait for Shikaku," Hiruzen says, nodding to Inoichi and drawing attention to Danzo standing stiffly in the corner.

Inoichi nods and starts shuffling through the papers in his hands while they wait, so Hiruzen returns to his paperwork. It's menial stuff, approving a new set of chunin to leave on border control and reports on the chaos in Kiri.

"Apologies for the delay," Shikaku says, walking through the door, his chakra buzzing to reflect his inner disarray.

"Not a problem," Hiruzen dismisses, "Inoichi?"

"Right," Inoichi nods, "Overall, my findings are as follows, Kabuto Yakushi was a plant by Orochimaru. His adopted mother died under strange circumstances, which has started its own investigation, she is not currently believed to have worked for Orochimaru. Yoroi Akado is a traitor. He was turned in the same incident that killed Hibiki Hyuuga and Misumi Tsurugi, who both refused to defect and were murdered for it. Hokori Isan and Asano Sakurai have both been cleared as loyal."

"How was it that the genin killed one of Orochimaru's plants?" Danzo asks, stepping forward with a click of his cane. "Your previous report said that this 'Yakushi' had some highly impressive medical ability."

"Asano reported that she saw him heal far beyond his supposed ability during the fight that led to their capture, so she used a sneak attack, attacking his neck to sever the spinal cord and cut off his head before splitting open his stomach and working to remove his heart. He was dead, or at least severely impared before he knew he was being attacked."

"And the bear?" Danzo pushes, asking a question Hiruzen had been a bit curious about.

"It…" Inoichi sighs and lifts a hand to massage his temple. "The bear summoning contract is kept in the summoning world, so when it's last Summoner died, it had to find a new summoner before it left or else it would be stuck there until someone reverse-summoned themselves to the bear contract by accident. The bear contract is only signed by women, and Asano was the last living female in the area with active chakra. There's a full report on it," Inoichi pauses to shuffle through his papers, pulling one out and placing it on Hiruzen's desk. "It actually only found her as, or after she'd killed Kabuto. Asano signed it after she cut off Kabuto's head and before she cut his gut."

"Stranger things have happened…" Shikaku offers to the silent room. While true, the whole tale is ridiculous. Hiruzen supposes he should've learnt to expect such things in his line of work.

"Very well, what needs to come next?" Hiruzen asks, glancing over the report on the bear summons and their contract.

"In order of priority: I need approval for further investigation into Kabuto and Nono Yakushi and Yoroi Akado; approval on the completed investigation into Asano Sakurai and Hokori Isan; your official verdict on Asano Sakurai; and what should happen with Asano Sakurai, Hokori Isan, and Yoroi Akado."

"Your recommendations?"

"Yoroi Akado should be executed once the investigation is finished. Hokori Isan should be given official notice that he acted within expected parameter and given official counselling and never placed as a jonin instructor again. Asano Sakurai should be given full pardon for Acting without Leave and a commendation for catching a traitor to Konoha. She'll need official counselling and medical work to re-grow and attach a new tongue - which may face troubles due to her medical conditions. Then I'd like to request that she joins T&I after a vacation. She has the ability to do what's needed and would benefit from staying within Konoha around a secure support group."

"Yoroi Akado will be executed within a year, unless you need it postponed," Hiruzen decides, "Hokori Isan should see me personally to get another two weeks of trauma leave with mandatory daily counselling and optional counselling after. He'll replace Kurenai Yuhi on infiltration team 8 while she's teaching. Asano Sakurai and her parents will see me after Hokori. She'll receive a month and a half of medical and trauma leave with twice weekly mandatory counselling and meeting with the hospital arranged ASAP. She will be offered a chance to retire, though ideally she'll join T&I. She'll also be given the option to join another team, though I suspect that would be a bad idea."

"I have a team I think she'd excel in," Danzo offers.

"Send me the details, I'll give her the option," Hiruzen nods.

xXx

Hokori's eyes are dark and weary when he enters Hiruzen's office. Part of him desperately wants to rise and wrap his grand-student in a hug, but he's here as the Hokage, and Hokori has held him at arm's length since Orochimaru's betrayal. As far as Hiruzen is aware, he's held everyone but Anko at arm's length since then.

"I am truly sorrowed by your team's fate," Hiruzen says, and Hokori loses another bit of height as the weight of the situation seems to press on him further. "However, you did the best you could, in a terrible, terrible situation."

Hokori's gaze is dead and Hiruzen knows that jonin who lose a student are more likely to die in action by almost 50%.

xXx

He's only met Asano once, and seen her on a handful of occasions. She's small, pale, unassuming.

Yet she killed a high chunin, possibly jonin ranked traitor. She was the only one who knew about his actions and remained loyal to Konoha. It would be easy to underestimate her, but he cannot let himself. Yet, she's a loyal genin of Konoha, a friend of Naruto, and a victim of far too much suffering for her age. It wouldn't do to become too jaded either.

"Asano Sakurai," Hiruzen says, and watches as she nods, caution in her eyes. She doesn't know him, but unlike most genin, she doesn't trust him.

"HOKAGE," Asano signs, stiffly bowing. Flanking her, her parents bow in unison.

"Hokage-sama," they each say. Yoko smiles just a little, her expression knowing. Even now, a decade and a half out of ANBU she remains aware of just about everything that happens in Konoha. He suspects her surviving friends keep her in the know. She always was the sort to form a few incredibly tight bonds.

"You have been found guilty of killing Kabuto Yakushi. Your actions were to protect Konoha, and you were right to do so. As such," he pauses, makes sure he holds her gaze, "I, and Konoha, thank you."

Asano looks a struck, her father (always suspicious of Konoha, as is often the case with members of a shadow clan) does too.

"You have suffered greatly, and for that I am sorry. You have the next six weeks off for medical and trauma leave, with therapy twice a week. You'll be scheduled for treatment at the hospital within the next few days, speak with the hospital secretary about it. I've already sent a message."

Hiruzen then sits quietly, and allows the Sakurai family to absorb this news. He wonders, occasionally, about them.

Yamato's reports are interesting, but almost entirely focused on Hideo with notes on Yoko every once in a while. He had mentioned that Asano was extremely intelligent, like her father and eldest brother, but very little beyond that. He'd have to request that the young man give her a bit more attention. The same for Kakashi, as the teacher to Asano's best friend.

It was too bad her health made her ineligible for ANBU, if she was half the shinobi her mother was then Konoha was lucky to have her. Best to nurture that spark - without allowing it to become a forest fire of course. Perhaps in an intelligence position she could become an advisor to the next Hokage, team 7 all seemed to like, or at least tolerate her.

An interesting idea at least, he'd have to see what her next mentor said.

"After that, you have a few options," Hiruzen said, explaining Danzo and Inoichi's respective offers, as well as a position on a team that was soon to join the chunin exams and had also recently lost a member.

Asano's face has gone a fleeting white to match her mother's and for a second Hiruzen wonders if Danzo had done something bad with the Sakurai family. Perhaps he did. Hiruzen pushes the thought away, almost too painful to bear for how plausible it seems. "WORK - T&I - PLEASE," Asano signs.

"Very well," Hiruzen looks down at the notes on his desk and makes a note for Asano's files to be transferred to T&I training. Perhaps one of the youth interrogators would be ideal for her supervisor. It would require some thought, to be sure. "One more thing," Hiruzen makes allows some chakra to gather around him to create a weight to his words, "this is not permission to act without orders, and once you have been taught how to act appropriately under such circumstances, I expect you'll follow them."

"CONFIRM - HOKAGE-SAMA," Asano says, nodding once more.

There was something hesitant in Inoichi's original report. Asano seemed to be... extraordinarily loyal to, at least the people of Konoha. Especially compared to her father. Perhaps it was her mother's influence. Either way, he would have to keep an eye on her.

"I will see you back here once you've spent two weeks at T&I," Hiruzen says, pulling up the papers on fixing the water pipes on one of the streets near the merchant district that was going to cost more than expected. "You're dismissed."

The Sakurai family all bow, approximately in unison, and leave silently. Her father's hand rests on Asano's shoulder.

He saw in her shadow the future of Konoha.

Notes:

If u feel like sending some love i'd appreciate it.

Chapter 58: Reaction - Multiple POV

Chapter Text

Kakashi Hatake

When Kakashi wakes up, he's tired. He's always tired though so that's nothing worth noting really. He lays on the ground, feeling the imaginary chain holding his chest to the ground, thinking of the effort it will take to sit up. Morning light has just started to touch the trees high above, and the forest floor is still almost entirely dark and quiet.

After a slow count to five, Kakashi sits up and glances at Sakura, who's on morning watch. She's awake, which is good. Given Team Seven's rather dismal skills he was half afraid she'd be dead asleep. She's watching the forest and Kakashi sighs. Now is as good a time for a lesson as any he supposes. Hopefully once he teaches Sakura then she'll teach the other two so he doesn't have to worry about it. (He has enough to worry about as it is.)

"Sakura," he says, drawing her attention immediately. Also a good sign, given that Kakashi has known more than a couple shinobi who had a tendency to cast genjutsu that made them appear alert while they slept. Not a bad tactic in certain situations, but a bad habit for a genin, especially one with as little chakra as Sakura. Kakashi stands and moves past the sleeping boys.

"Good morning, Sensei," Sakura whispers, her voice obviously tired.

"When on guard duty, there are varying levels of awareness required." Kakashi says, "sometimes it will be important that you are awake and aware of your surroundings. Other times you just need to be awake. You'll have to practice to find the balance, but in general, there's a pattern you can follow. When we're in Fire Country on a lower-ranked mission - B-rank or lower - then you can set traps and do some quiet activity. Reading usually."

"But Iruka-sensei said that we have to be ready to fight at a moment's notice."

"Ahh." It's considered rude to say that chunin are idiots and are only accepted as teachers because children are idiots too. "You will learn that… there are certain ideas that make sense in theory but not in practice. Being ready to fight for 15 hours of a day can lead to hyper-vigilance which makes functioning in-village highly difficult." He would know, after all.

"Would I take down the traps when I go to bed and then have the person on the next shift put up new ones?" Sakura asks, looking increasingly awake as she shuffles around (far too loudly) and glances over at her sleeping teammates.

"Sometimes." It depends on how much you trust your teammates, Kakashi doesn't say, "for now we'll have whichever one of you is best with traps set them for the night under my supervision. It's important that you understand how the traps work and how to work with, and around them."

It feels neglectful of the academy to have not taught this. Or maybe it's his fault for not having taught this already? He can't remember a time before he knew about the details of guard duty. When he was young he remained constantly vigilant each night of course, because that's what the official instructions said. Minato-sensei hadn't stopped him because they were at war and it wasn't a bad idea in that instance, but he had known and made a conscious decision about it.

He doesn't think about the letter from Konoha. He doesn't think about the instruction to watch Sakura closely. He doesn't think- doesn't think- doesn't-

"Go to sleep Sakura," he says, not looking at her, instead focusing on the familiar text of Icha Icha.

Sakura Haruno

Sakura is high on success as they enter back into the village. She misses Asano, and her medical books, and using her own shower. She misses Konoha. That said. The mission wasn't as bad as she was expecting. It started off pretty poorly, and she'd been ready to murder all three of her fellow shinobi by the end of the first week. (She missed Asano so much.)

She'd realised around that time that their clients were lying to them. It had been little things, like the way they looked at Naruto weirdly and commented on Sakura's hair. Then bigger things, like the way they moved around Naruto's traps, and the dad - Kishi - had gotten into a boisterous conversation about ramen. Which shouldn't be that weird, except that he kept up with Naruto, for like, an hour and a half.

The thing that really caught them though, were the seals. Sakura knew seals, only peripherally because of Asano, but she knew them. She recognised ink stains when she saw them. And that sealing paper was different from normal paper.

And then they'd been attacked and Sakura didn't know what to do but Kakashi protected them and she and Sasuke protected their clients, even if Naruto froze.

Then they learned that their clients were Uzumaki. Naruto was an Uzumaki.

Sakura missed Asano. She would've known what sealing questions to ask, and how to talk about Uzushiogakure. (A quiet repetition of 'Asano, Asano, Asano' ran through her head. She'd make Asano proud, she missed Asano, she couldn't wait to tell Asano about their mission- Asano, Asano, Asano.)

"Team 7, back from their first C-rank," Kakashi-sensei said to the woman at the desk, just outside of the Hokage's office.

They were let in, and then almost immediately told to leave while Kakashi gave his report. Why'd they even have to show up at all? Whatever, Sakura needed to take a shower and hunt Asano down.

? ?

The girl is in a private room. Shinobi are usually placed in private rooms. Genin are sometimes in shared rooms. The girl's record said she was a new genin. She is approximately the same age as me, though I don't know my exact date of birth.

The girl is left alone at night, her Father leaves and a medic-nin only visits every three hours.

After one of the medic-nin on duty (Kouta Itou, civilian raised, none, genjutsu and ninjutsu) left the room at 11:34, I enter through the window.

The hospital is one of the easiest missions available up until one of the surgery patients started talking. In English. None of the medic-nin recognised it of course, thought the patient was babbling, or that the girl's new tongue was getting in the way.

I know the truth though.

The girl is not completely asleep, but not awake either. Her eyes are mostly closed, her hand twitches at her side. There are bruises around her wrists from where she woke up during the surgery and panicked. A rookie mistake.

She jolts and turns to look at me.

We stare at each other in the dark.

"You spoke English," I say, switching language mid-sentence. I'm not fluent in English, but I know enough to communicate. I think - I can't remember clearly.

"What the fuck."

"You speak English," I say, perhaps she is confused. The anaesthesia may still be affecting her. Against her English, I can hear my own accent, I hadn't been able to remember what native English speakers sounded like.

"You speak English?!" She echoes back. Perhaps she is just stupid.

"Obviously."

"I- What. Sorry. What?!" She looks around, pinches herself and then reaches out. I step forward, allowing her to touch my uniform. "You were reborn too?"

"I don't know that word - reborn?"

"Reincarnated, reborn. You were- you remember too?"

"Did you assume you were the only one?" I ask, "how arrogant."

"I- Maybe, but. Who are you?"

"I don't have a name," I lie.

"ROOT?" She asks, after a moment of hesitation. I nod sharply. "I'm sorry. Do you remember… before?"

"My previous life? Yes."

"Do you remember Naruto?"

"Yes."

The room is dark and near-silent. I had held onto those faded memories so hard, and now as near as I could get to proof was here. I wasn't crazy.

"I'm going to change it- I have changed it." She says hands clenched tight around fists full of blankets.

"Good, I will do my best to help. In return, you will help me get out of ROOT."

"Okay," she turns and smiles at me. "My name's Asano Sakurai now, it's my pleasure to meet you."

Shikamaru Nara

"Do you remember Asano?" Ino asks, and Shikamaru can barely resist a groan when Choji turns to give Ino his full attention. "Apparently, her team was disbanded! She's working at T&I now."

"Do you know why?" Shikamaru asks, even though he's not sure he actually wants to know. Sage, he'd hoped he'd heard the last of the girl.

"MMm, not sure sure," Ino says, "but I heard their mission went really bad."

Shikamaru opens his eyes and sits up.

"How bad?" He asks because there is definitely a scale of really bad for shinobi missions. Ino looks a bit pale, and her lips are pressed tightly together.

"I- I heard that her team was captured. For information."

Even Choji's stopped eating. All three of them had known it was a possibility for as long as they could remember. One of Shikamaru's cousins died during an escape attempt, she'd stayed behind to hold as many enemies back as she could. Her shadows had returned without her.

Shikamaru couldn't even really imagine staying behind, knowing he might die, but deciding it was worth the chance it would help his teammates live. He could decide he would do it, had already decided. He couldn't really imagine it though. It seemed far off, a different world from the one they were in.

"Is she... is she okay?" Choji asks, and Shikamaru feels a flicker of love for Choji's caring nature.

"I don't know, Daddy asked me to talk to her. She's going to work with T&I soon." Ino flicks her hair back, but Shikamaru can see the tension in the way she leans back.

"Be careful," Shikamaru says after a moment, "she might be volatile." Ino scoffs because she knows, but the unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach didn't let up.

Chapter 59: Silent Therapy - Miyu POV

Chapter Text

"Hello, I'm Miyu," she introduces herself to the girl sitting in the waiting room. Asano Sakurai. A young genin that was captured and tortured while on a mission with her team. Upon their escape, the genin killed her traitor teammate and was faced with suspicion before the traitor's status was confirmed.

"HELLO," Asano signs, smiling and looking Miyu in the face, though not the eyes.

"Please, come into my office," she gestures, and the girl follows. "It may take a little while to adjust to each other, but it's important to me you feel comfortable in this space. Would you like some tea, or the windows closed?" Miyu's worked with disabled shinobi before, but working with a mute shinobi feels like she's trying to work without her eyes. The voice tells so much. Still, she'll do her best.

"YES - NO" Asano signs, looking from the tea to the window in turn. Working with a mute shinobi with limited signing skill is even worse.

Miyu is a civilian, which surprises other civilians. She has some small shinobi training, though no skill with chakra. She can read shinobi hand-signs, and is in some ways, very integrated with Konoha's shinobi community. But she was born in Konoha and trained in the Fire Capital. She had been interviewed and examined by T&I until they knew she wasn't a safety risk. She would not be allowed to leave Konoha again, but she knew that when she signed up. She and the six other young adults who went with her to the Fire Capital had learned much about the brain from a civilian perspective. Now she would help Konoha's shinobi and work with the T&I department until mental health was given the attention it deserved.

Once Asano has settled, Miyu pulls out a pad of paper with the outlines of flowers drawn in black ink and passes it across to the girl.

"Here," Miyu says, grabbing her own notepad from the coffee table. "If you feel comfortable, at some point perhaps we can talk about how you ended up here, but such actions only help when you feel safe. For the time being, I'll teach you some techniques to help to cope with any difficulties you may be having." She says as if she doesn't have a partial T&I file on the girl. As if she doesn't know the girl has a habit of tapping out the same sequence - TRAITOR - when distressed.

"YES"

Miyu passes Asano a box of coloured pencils to use on the drawing page and explains that tracking flashbacks can allow her to notice signs one might be coming, and how to avoid or reduce them.

xXx

"It's important to have hobbies. What do you like to do, Asano?"

"TRAIN - " Asano makes a sign Miyu doesn't recognise and Asano tries again before writing out, 'sealing,' in the corner of her sketching page.

"Ah! It's down like this," Miyu shows, and Asano copies.

"- SAKURA," Asano finishes, using the Red, White, and Hair signs in sequence to refer to her friend. They were noted as being particularly close. Perhaps, if Asano was comfortable with it, Sakura should also attend a session so she knew how to support her friend while keeping herself healthy.

xXx

"Hello Asano," Miyu says as the girl enters, closing the door behind her.

"HELLO" Asano signs, sitting in the same seat she'd chosen on their first meeting.

"How are you doing today," Miyu glances through her notes from a couple of days previous, Asano had said she was learning more signs to communicate easier and was teaching her friend, Sakura Haruno, as well.

"BAD" Asano looks out the window as she signs. Miyu notes that she's carefully controlling her breathing.

"Would you like to expand on that?" Miyu asks, but Asano just shakes her head. It's not surprising. Asano is fastidiously polite, but she is not an open person, a normal enough trait for shinobi. It's less common in 12-year-olds, but Asano was frankly, not particularly normal. Pressuring Asano wouldn't help, even if Miyu would love to see inside the child's brain.

"I believe we agreed last week we would talk about memory?" Miyu says, watching as Asano's hands twitch before she lifts them to sign,

"YES."

xXx

"How is the tongue replacement coming," Miyu asks, slightly on guard after Asano had stood and walked out of the last session with a short signing of 'SORRY - RETREAT'.

"COMPLICATION" Asano signs looking almost annoyed.

"Oh dear," Miyu looks at her notes, the surgery had been scheduled for the end of the week, and Asano has been very much looking forward to it. She still would be unable to talk normally for around a month while it healed, but she would be able to speak some. "How's that make you feel?"

Asano just stares at her for a moment before drawing a simple frowning face, she pauses a moment, looking at the face intently before adding little angry eyebrows.

"Not good, I would hazard?" Miyu says, amused. Asano nods.

xXx

"Good morning Asano," Miyu says, sipping her tea. Due to complications during surgery Asano had been unable to make her last appointment, and thus. A morning session. Not Miyu's favourite by any measure, but necessary.

"Good… Morning…" Asano manages, and while the enunciation was… not great, Miyu still grinned.

"It's excellent to hear you say that."

Chapter 60: Broken/Betrayal - Kakashi POV

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The first thing Kakashi does after being interviewed on Asano Sakurai is check on his team. Sasuke is in the Uchiha compound, sprinting laps. Naruto teaching some academy kid how to hide. They don't seem very competent, and Naruto is not particularly patient with him. (Wait. Is that the Hokage's grandson? Whatever, Kakashi has not been paid to deal with that.) Sakura is at home, curled in bed with Asano Sakurai.

Team 7 still has another five days off after their last mission. He'd been given two days to recover before his interview, and the team has a whole week off. (He's still going to check on them.)

xXx

Kakashi-the-Jonin is pretty terrible about turning in his mission reports. Kakashi-the-ANBU always turned in his mission reports on time and perfectly accurate (albite terribly dull, Kakashi-the-ANBU had no storytelling talent).

Kakashi works had to be as different a person from his ANBU persona as possible. So he's a bit conflicted.

He probably should turn in this mission report. And like. Do it properly. They met living Uzumaki. The parents had been old enough even just based on first appearance, to remember Uzushio. Given the Uzumaki vitality, they could actually be several decades older.

Naruto met the Uzumaki. Sakura met the Uzumaki. Luckily, none of the team had revealed Naruto's last name. Unfortunately, he knows that Asano Sakurai is studying sealing and that Sakura is unlikely to hide anything from her friend.

"Ah, Kakashi…" the Hokage smiles at Kakashi as if he isn't surprised or annoyed by Kakashi's appearance. Kakashi just allows a fake (fake) smile to rise onto his face.

"I would like to request permission to tell Naruto Uzumaki about his heritage."

"Denied."

"Yessir," Kakashi slips back out the window.

No. Kakashi doesn't think he'll rush on that mission report.

xXx

Kakashi wakes at dawn each day, a life long habit he doesn't know how to break. Perhaps it's for the best he does. It already takes him hours each day to get out of bed, to eat, to clean, to dress, to meet with his students. How late would he be if he only woke an hour before Team 7 was due to meet?

He wakes at dawn and knows immediately. It's a bad day. His face aches, all around Obito's eye. His back is tight. The dogs are quiet - probably still asleep.

The sun has well risen, and the streets are starting to become truly noisy by the time he makes it to the memorial stone. Obito. Rin. Kushina. Minato. He has lost teammate since - one doesn't work in ANBU without losing teammates - but none hurt like those first ones.

Two days ago, he was interviewed, as someone with a connection to Asano Sakurai and the whole business that went down. Afterwards, Inoichi filled him in on all the gory, classified details. It's only been a few days since they got back from Team 7's first C-rank and already he wishes he was out of Konoha again.

His brain is both too loud - screaming and static so loud he wouldn't be able to hear Gai. His brain is quiet. Unable to even suggest a way to help. To help the girl or Sakura. To make things better. (Part of him is so furious at the Hokage for not allowing Sakurai to be part of his team. If Sakurai was part of Team 7, this never would have happened. )

One thought, changing, repeating, altered each time, loops in his head. What if there had been a traitor on Kakashi's genin team.

The thought is ridiculous. No one of Team Minato was a traitor. But. (But.) There is no betrayal without trust. No one thinks the people they trust would betray them.

So. What if someone one Team Minato was a traitor.

If it was Minato… they would all be dead. Konoha would be a smoking mass. It would be like the Uchiha Massacre but worse because, for all his strength, Itachi Uchiha could not teleport. For all his strength, Itachi Uchiha was prepubescent. Minato would have wiped out half of Konoha before any alarms went off.

Minato and Kushina loved each other, the thought of Minato betraying that is nearly comical. But. But if he had… He and Kushina were wrapped around each other's little finger. If Minato took advantage. He could've turned Kushina against Konoha, Kakashi thinks. He definitely could have turned Kakashi against Konoha, young and hurt as he had been.

But it wasn't Sakurai's jonin sensei who betrayed Konoha. It was her teammates.

If Rin was a traitor… For a moment the thought hurts too much too breath because he can already see it. His arm in his chest and the horror that he had done the right thing. (Rin threw herself onto his arm - Rin literally chose to die over betraying Konoha.) Still, Kakashi knows he could've (would've) killed Rin before Obito died, if he thought she was a traitor if he was left alone and wounded with her. If he feared she knew that he was aware of her betrayal. If he was in the same situation Sakurai had been, Kakashi would have killed Rin and would have been happy to be killed by Konoha in turn. (Comrade-Killer Kakashi.)

If Obito was a traitor? The thought is comical. Kakashi now is closer a traitor to Konoha that Obito ever was, and Kakashi is a hokage candidate. (Kakashi has seen the worst of Konoha and still believes in Konoha. Kakashi has seen the worst of Konoha and is still loyal.)

No, Obito would never betray Konoha, not even in Kakashi's mind.

(If Obito was alive, was in Kakashi's place, he'd know what to do. He'd know what to say to his team, and to Sakurai. He would know how to beg the Hokage not to put Sakurai's brother into ANBU just because he has the mokuton-)

(Kakashi will not finish that thought.)

xXx

On the first day of Team 7 meeting after their mission, Sakura apologies to Naruto. Sasuke stares into the middle distance. Kakashi takes them to do a D-rank. (He doesn't talk to them about betrayal, about Konoha, about being captured and tortured. He does not talk to them.)

On the second day back, Asano is behind Sakura as the two arrive at the meeting sight. She leaves when Kakashi arrives.

On the third day, Sakura is late. Not as late as Kakashi, but only barely.

On the fourth day, Sasuke yells at Naruto and the two fight until they roll into the river.

On the fifth day, Kakashi starts truly itching to leave Konoha again. Sasuke sets Naruto (not one of his clones) on fire.

On the sixth day, Sakura is late. Truly late. Kakashi arrives and Sakura is not there.

Notes:

Still deciding on the next POV so let me know what u want to see! :D

Chapter 61: Chakra Spikes - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Yoko tells Sakura she needs to get interviewed before she sees Asano. That's when a weight settles in her gut. Yoko tells her where to go, and she does. There's a lot of reasons to get interviewed. She sits through over an hour of questions, still exhausted and filthy from her mission since she'd gone straight to Asano's house. Then they thank her for her cooperation. Then they debrief her. It's clinical and horrifying and Sakura has never felt such loathing in all her life. (Has never felt such desperation in all her life.)

It's Yoko, who soothes Sakura somewhat. She's not nice about it really, but not cruel either.

"You need to calm down before you go to Asano's room," Yoko says after Sakura has run all the way back. "She's still recovering and may put on a mask, especially if she feels like you need her to be okay." Yoko looks Sakura dead in the eye and says something that will linger with Sakura for years to come. "Be her support, when she needs it. Don't force her to be okay, because she isn't right now."

Sakura is empty. Inner looks bloated and feverish in Sakura's mind but Sakura's thoughts are blissfully silent. Yoko looks towards a window then rolls back in her wheelchair,

"I need to go make dinner, you go see Asano, she's been waiting to see you."

Sakura stands. She walks to Asano's room. She knocks, then opens the door without waiting. Asano is asleep on her bed. It's late afternoon. Sakura grabs a book she rememberers wanting to read, opens it, and stares at the first page blankly.

Sakura couldn't say how much time has passed when her attention was drawn away from staring blankly at the book. Asano is rustling in bed and in something of a daze Sakura crosses the room and crawls in bed with Asano. She falls asleep quickly.

She wakes up to a tapping on her arm. Opening her eyes, Asano is really close. Sakura stares into to gold eyes and for a moment Sakura doesn't remember what happened. Then the tapping continues and Sakura starts trying to listen.

"H-E-L-L-O / H-E-L-L-O"

"Hi," Sakura says, smiling and desperately ignoring Inner, screaming. ("IT'S OUR FAULT," Inner screams, the world in her mind shakes like the world has shifted, has been permanently, irrevocably changed.)

Sakura smiles.

Asano wakes up silently and cries in the middle of the night. She lays awake, staring at a wall or the ceiling or minutes on end. She taps, taps, taps TRAITOR, over and over in frantic terror.

Sakura can barely leave her for a few minutes before an anxiety she knows is irrational, grips her so hard it feels like being physically harmed. Her head starts to ache, her muscles tense, Inner starts screaming, nonstop.

She doesn't try to stay away all that hard.

"I think I can apply for personal leave," Sakura says, a full day before team meetings are scheduled to restart. "I don't need the money from D-ranks. Maybe I'll be moved to a different team, but maybe not."

"NO," Asano signs. One of her best signs. "TEAM - P-R-I-O-R-I-T-Y," she switches from sign to tap code, pausing to look Sakura in the eye so she understands how serious she is.

The morning of the meeting, Asano walks her there, on her way to the hospital. Asano pushes her towards Sasuke, waiting. (Inner screams at her, for being a burden on Asano. For making Asano force her.)

She apologies to Naruto once he arrives. (She won't make Asano force her to, she knows how disappointed Asano had been by how rude she'd been.)

She does the D-rank assigned. (She won't make Asano sign, "FOR ME - PLEASE," because she's being a burden on her team. On her friend.)

She gets a migraine. It feels like a stiff ninja-wire going straight through her eye. Her whole body is wound tight, tight, too tight.

(Everyone else is a bit off as well, but Sakura literally could not care less. Asano is her first, last, and only priority.)

That night Sakura holds on to Asano too tightly, until Asano pushes her off and walks around Sakura's bedroom for a few minutes before settling on the edge of the bed. That night, Sakura falls asleep first, but it still takes over an hour.

That morning they rotate around each other. They don't talk much, they don't need to.

Outside of Team 7's waiting point, Asano pauses. Then she joins Sakura. She smiles at Naruto. She pats Sasuke on the shoulder, two brief touches. She taps out,

"N-O-T / F-U-N / B-U-T / O-K"

Sakura pushes Naruto back when he approaches Asano too fast. She watches. (Inner cries when Asano's gaze goes blank. When Sasuke notices, looks away.) It's not comfortable the way it had been before, but there's something nice about being together, all four of them.

Asano leaves when Kakashi arrives and Sakura hates him for that, a little bit.

Asano is asleep when Sakura gets back from training. That night she's awake, pacing, then writing almost frantically in a cheap notebook. Sakura reads over Asano's shoulder for a second, but it's just a story, one of Asano's relatively few hobbies. When Sakura goes to sleep, Asano is still writing.

Sakura wakes up in the dead of night to the sound of choked back sobs and finds Asano in the corner of the room, face wet with tears and snot. Sakura sits up next to her so their sides are touching, then she just waits. Asano hates feeling watched when crying - when they were younger she would scream at Sakura to 'go away,' every time. Now she leans against Sakura when the tears eventually slow down.

"T - R - A - I - T - O -R" Asano taps on the wood floor, and Sakura hates Kabuto so much in that moment she's almost surprised her chakra isn't flaring. Or maybe it is, and she can't tell. (There's a dead serious look in Inner's eye when she says, "I don't think killing will be as hard as we thought." Maybe that should scare Sakura. It doesn't.)

When they wake up in the morning, Asano's eyes are dull, her face still and strange. She looks almost dead, even with her chest rising and falling as she breathes. Sakura gets up a bit late, and Asano stays laying in bed. Sakura gets breakfast and Asano joins her. When Sakura gets out of the bathroom, Asano is back in bed.

"Asano, you have therapy today," Sakura reminds her, nudging Asano.

"ACKNOWLEDGED" Asano signs, still not moving. "TIRED" she adds - a new sign from the book they've been studying. Sakura pulls out clothes for Asano.

"Come on, if you get ready then we can get a hot chocolate on our way." Sakura tries coaxing, trying not to let a new fear settle in her heart. Sometimes. Sometimes shinobi kill themselves. She hadn't- Asano wouldn't- (Inner grabs the image of Asano, lying dead on the ground, and she sticks in a box and locks it tight. She can't consider that. Asano can't die. She can't.)

Sakura is late for training and… she doesn't have it in her to care.

The next morning Sakura feels like her skin has been scrubbed with sandpaper and Asano is still acting strange and- (She's just. So angry, all the time. Inner yells and screams and gives Sakura a headache but the anger never subsides.)

She and Naruto fight until they're soaked in water and sweat and everything in Sakura aches and. She feels better.

The next day is better too, and Asano starts smiling a bit again. And her surgery to get a new tongue attached is soon and it feels like things are getting better.

Then Asano starts screaming in the middle of the night. When Sakura startles awake and moves to touch her and Asano's hand grabs Sakura. And it hurts.

It feels like spikes are being forced through Sakura's skin. It's a pain unlike any she's felt before. And Sakura's screaming too.

Asano stops. The pain fades (mostly).

"Ahh- ahah- awwy," Asano is trying to say and her arm still hurts.

"It's okay, I'm okay," Sakura says because Asano is still crying and it doesn't hurt that much - she'll be fine. Asano has only spoken with her mouth once since Sakura got back, showing Sakura how little she can enunciate.

Sakura sits up and that motion makes new pain shook through her arm. Asano is there, looking worried once Sakura can unclench her jaw.

"HOSPITAL" Asano signs and Sakura wants to protest but OH FUCK it hurts. ("Oh look, there's blood," Inner says as dark spots start spreading on Sakura's long sleeve shirt.

The medic who runs her mint green chakra over Sakura's arm looks confused.

"What happened?" He asks, and Sakura can only look to Asano who signs,

"CHAKRA / S - P - I - K - E - S"

"Alright, come through. You'll have to wait until one of the higher level medics are available," he still looks a bit baffled, "be careful with new techniques," he adds.

Sakura's arm is in a sling when she finally makes it to training, way late.

"What happened?" Naruto asks, and Sasuke is there as well.

"Asano had a flashback last night and uhhh," She looks to Asano who is still hovering.

"S - H - O - V - E - D / CHAKRA / S - P - I - K - E - S," Asano signs, looking guilting.

"Shoved chakra spikes into my arm, apparently."

"KILLED / TRAITOR / SAME," Asano adds.

"Which is the same way she killed Kabuto… apparently. When'd you learn how to do chakra spikes?" Sakura thought she knew all of Asano's techniques.

"BAD / T - R - E - E / C - L - I - M - B - I - N - G"

"Tree climbing?" Sasuke interjects sounding curious and interested. Asano walks over to one of the trees on the edge of the clearing and walks up and down it then gestures for them to pause. Then she puts her hand against the tree quickly and when she pulls back, just as fast, the tree looks fine at first glance. Then Asano grabs Sasuke's hand and pushes it against the spot she just touched.

"It's dead?" Sasuke asks, Asano shrugs,

"BROKE / CHAKRA / PATH "

"Hmm, terrifying," Sakura says.

"Oh, there you are Sakura," Kakashi says doing his creepy eye smile, "I thought maybe you forgot we had training." Sakura can see the moment he processes the sling holding her left arm. "What happened?"

"Asano had a flashback and accidentally… shoved chakra spikes into my arm. According to the medic is… tore my chakra channels." Sakura says, forcing the words out. Asano had written out that it would look really bad if she hid it, and that Asano could get in a lot of trouble if they hid it. Still, it felt… it felt like a betrayal.

Notes:

BTW Asano first used chakra spikes in chapter 51 when Hokori was about to drop her down the tree. It wasn't as... intense as it became, so Hokori was hurt but was able to heal w/out a medic and didn't even notice it'd injured his chakra system.

Chapter 62: Making Friends - Kakashi

Chapter Text

Kakashi is probably too thankful that his students seem to have agreed to take some D-rank missions. (He knows they're plotting something, but he's going to ignore as long as humanly possible. Unless it looks like someone is going to die… and even then…) It makes going to the mission desk much less embarrassing.

Since Sakura arrives with the sling off her arm, they can start taking any D-rank, instead of the boring ones like grocery shopping and litter pick up. Naruto is grinning at Sakura, who is also smiling, and Sasuke appears to be looking at her as well. Too bad Kakashi Does Not Care. (Nope, no caring happening here!)

"Ah, Kakashi! Are these your genin?" Genma says, slapping a hand on Kakashi's shoulder. How has Kakashi failed to create a proper space bubble, that's the real question here.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki!" Naruto volunteers, like the overly friendly small genin he is. He's shining that million-watt smile that is more than a little blinding.

"Sasuke Uchiha," Sasuke says, eyeing Genma like he's wondering if he can get any training out of the tokujo jonin… which isn't a terrible idea actually. Maybe Genma could help un-traumatise the boy since Kakashi certainly can't.

"Sakura Haruno," Sakura has that almost eerie smile that Kakashi has learned to recognise as her, 'you don't matter to me, and you don't matter to Asano, I don't care about you at all' smile. It's really not a good sign. Kakashi suppresses yet another sigh.

"Nice to meet you lot," Genma smiles at each of them in turn and Kakashi can feel his attention-starved little genin start to really notice him. "I was on my way to lunch with Iruka, Kotetsu, Izumo, Gai, and Ebisu. Choza-sensei was going to meet us, but he got called in for clan stuff. You guys should join us. My genin teammate, Gai, has a team of his own - they'll be there too. I think they're a year older than you."

Genma doesn't even have to smile at Kakashi for Kakashi to know this is his revenge for being a little unfriendly with that chunin 'Iruka'. He can already see that his little genin are going - with or without him.

"I haven't seen Iruka-sensei in ages!" Naruto cheers, glancing between Sasuke and Sakura as if making sure he has their support. He does.

"I'd be interesting to meet other genin teams…" Sakura offers. Sasuke hums in agreement.

'I miss ANBU,' Kakashi tells himself, even though, really, he doesn't. He misses the structure and knowing what he was doing, but he doesn't miss ANBU. Still, he slouches low and follows after Genma, guiding his troublesome little genin to the barbecue restaurant with the long tables.

"My Eternal Rival!"

Truly, what is Kakashi's life, but suffering?

xXx

Somehow Genma manages to force Kakashi between That Chunin, Iruka, and Gai. While Sakura its between Ebisu and Gai's female genin. Naruto is on Iruka's other side and Genma, while Sasuke is between Gai's other two genin. Food is arriving by the platter and things don't seem to be going too badly.

Sakura is talking about Asano, Naruto is talking about 'cool missions', and Sasuke is silently seething at something the Hyuuga genin said.

"Iruka-chan mentioned you, I think," Genma is saying, "you're the one who painted the Hokage monument?"

Kakashi wonders how Genma justifies it to himself. He's always been a better person than Kakashi, and even Kakashi struggled with watching Naruto grow up so alone. He checked in on him, of course, but that's barely short of nothing. Genma was only a couple years older than Kakashi… but.

(Look. Kakashi doesn't begrudge Genma his distance. The Hokage was very clear about staying away, for Naruto's sake. It's just… Genma just about raised Iruka and is at least an older-brother figure to Kotetsu and Izumo. Surely it wouldn't have been too strange for Genma to adopt or foster Naruto…)

Kakashi pulls out Icha Icha and folds up the thought and tucks it far away.

Obito's eye aches, sharp pains shooting into Kakashi's head. The small amount of energy he had drains out and all he's left with is hollow exhaustion. Can he leave his genin here? He's sure they'll be fine.

Gai says something but the words don't process.

"That'll be all for today," Kakashi says, loud enough his genin will hear, "I'll see my cute genin bright and early tomorrow. The rest of you are not invited."

xXx

The memorial stone is warm from the sun.

There's no reason to be here, really. It's not like Kakashi thinks his precious people can hear him, or that they'd be wiling to listen if they could. But he can stand here. Remind himself that they did exist, that he hasn't always been alone. (He needs to go clean Dad's gravestone soon.)

Footsteps approach, pause as the person sees him, and continues.

Kakashi remains, a statue watching a statue.

Obito, Rin, Minato, Kushina. The ANBU teammates he doesn't know the name of. (Rat and Boar; Lion and Bear; Mouse, Spider, Panther, and Seal. There were more, but Kakashi doesn't really remember much after that last mission that lost him all four of his mission partners.)

A small hand places flowers on the stone. They smell familiar. Kakashi glances to his left. It's Asano Sakurai. Because of course it is. Because the world won't let Kakashi rest until he's dead, and it refuses to kill him.

Kakashi pulls Icha Icha out of his pocket. He needs the comfort and protection.

'Sorry Obito, I know you think it's kind of gross, but I promise, it's actually really good.'

Sakura's friend is silent beside him. They've never spent time together, the girl always leaving when he arrives. He knows a fair bit about her, enough to know she's probably here for her brother, Taro, even though his name isn't on the stone.

It feels familiar, and for a moment, Kakashi feels closer with this strange girl (the person most likely to tear his team apart) than he ever has with his own genin.

Chapter 63: Welcome to T&I - Inoichi Yamanaka

Chapter Text

"Bye Daddy!" Ino yells, waving goodbye from the garden outside.

"Bye Sweetheart!" Inoichi yells back, the kitchen window open for this very exchange. Ino runs out sight, doubtless to meet Hinata Hyuuga by the Yamanaka compound gates. Inoichi looks down at the soapy dishes in the sink, taunting him. The clock ticks on the walls, drawing ever closer to 8:30.

On one hand, it's important to be on time to work. It showed his subordinates that he cares, that their work is important. On the other hand, if he couldn't be late, why be the boss in the first place. (Because the last head of the Analysis Team had been morally corrupt and unloyal, and Shikaku had asked him to step up.) It's not like Ibiki Morino would care, given how long everyone had been working lately, and how distracted he was by the mystery shinobi.

Washing the dishes had been an activity when Azuki was alive. She would wash, Inoichi would dry, and they would talk until Azuki got bored and started throwing clouds of bubbles at Inoichi. The ensuing water fight did mean the floor had to be mopped, but it had been fun. (It hadn't always been that way when they'd been tired or annoyed. Still, he hadn't felt alone, even when she was on missions.)

Even now, twelve years later, Inoichi forgets she's gone and remembering feels like learning of her death all over again.

Asano Sakura would be starting at T&I tomorrow. Inoichi is more nervous about it than he'd admit. There was a certainty to Asano Sakurai, a commitment to her actions, an unwavering belief in her accuracy. It risked leading her down a dark path. Between her connections and her intelligence, it could do more damage than Inoichi expected anyone else had realised. At least with Asano Sakurai in T&I, there was a chance someone would notice if Danzo started to engulf her.

(There was, of course, no proof Danzo would try, beyond his offers to train her. Inoichi didn't even know how Danzo recruited people to his command if such a group even existed like Inoichi suspected.)

xXx

Inoichi doesn't watch as Asano Sakurai enters T&I on her first day. He doesn't think about Ino, and how easily it could have been his baby on Team 13. He doesn't think about how old she is, how hard T&I can be. He has already thought these things and put them to the side.

He gets to his office just a little early, looking through the reports that got finished and turned in while he was at home. He makes notes for his schedule (far too many meetings, as usual).

He will not try to treat Asano Sakurai like a child or like his daughter. No matter how Inoichi dotes on Ino, it's not his natural state. He forced himself to learn to smile, hug and verbally congratulate his daughter because Azuki wasn't there to do so. Inoichi wouldn't describe himself as a hard man, but certainly a withdrawn, conservative one. He's always been very introverted, at heart.

He can be social, can manipulate people. He'd rather watch while Shikaku and Choza do the talking though. (His little Ino is so unlike him. So like the mask he wears. He's trying not to think about how feels about that.)

He adds Asano Sakura's name to his list, to check with her mentor at the end of the day, week, and month. He adds her to the list of names to watch, in case dubious forces reach for her. The chunin at the entrance knows to expect her, to give her directions to his office.

There's a knock on the door.

"Come in," Inoichi says, the door opening to reveal the girl. Tall, unweight, but less pale than previous. Given the blood she'd lost before he'd interviewed her, that's to be expected.

"Asano Sakurai, reporting for duty," she speaks with a small smile, standing tall, trying to make a good impression as a worker.

Inoichi had spoken with Hokori Isan at length about Asano Sakurai, among other things. Currently, the man was away on a mission, and would likely be away for the foreseeable future to avoid having nothing to do while he processes the trauma of the situation. A very shinobi way of dealing with things.

Years ago, when Orochimaru had just defected and Hokori was under investigation, Inoichi had spent hours and hours speaking with him. He hadn't been Head of Analysis yet, but he'd been rising the ranks. He and Azuki had been looking at starting a family and he'd wanted to be in Konoha more, instead of away on missions.

He knew Hokori Isan well enough to pay attention when he said Asano Sakurai had an interest in sealing, and perhaps a bit of talent there as well. Hokori Isan wasn't the sort to give undeserved praise, the opposite in fact. Perhaps that's how he missed Kabuto Yakushi's skill. So when Hokori Isan says Asano Sakurai is learning sealing from him, that she's interested in it, that she's picking it up with decent speed, Inoichi knows.

Knows that she'll need part-time work when Hokori Isan's in town so she can study under. Know he'll have to pay attention so she doesn't blow herself up in a sealing experiment. Knows she'll start hunting down other seal users as soon as she reaches the limit of Hokori Isan's skill. And she will hit that limit. Hokori Isan was one of the two dozen or so decent seal users in Konoha, one of the best at understanding the building blocks of sealing. He just didn't create new seals - for that he would never be a seal master like the Toad Sage Jiraiya or the Fourth Hokage.

When Hokori Isan said Asano Sakurai's skill laid in her mental strength, Inoichi knew there was a chance he was in for a rough couple years while she finds things of interest and tears into them with a speed and ferocity few people can understand. Inoichi was familiar with the process.

"Yes, come in," Inoichi says, watching as Asano Sakurai looks around the office in quick glances before settling in the moderately comfortable chair across from him. He pulls out the files that reference her. "You'll be doing all sorts of work while we find the best place for you. You'll be working under one of our tokubetsu jonin, Shun. They're an infiltration and interrogation expert."

True enough, though he doesn't specify that her skill is focused on adolescents and only soft interrogation. He wouldn't put a torture victim under someone who focused on hard interrogation, that would be… unkind. That was the same reason she was being placed under his command in Analysis, even though she would really be working with T&I in general. Ibiki Morino was not a gentle comforting figure, he would be watching Asano Sakurai, but had given Inoichi the job of welcoming party.

"As a genin, and a new member of T&I, you are not allowed to witness or take part in hard interrogation under your trigger list has been compiled, your senior officer has approved you, and you've reached senior genin or chunin rank. You are not allowed to enter the secure sub-basement levels without a chunin who is within Shun's chain of command. Do you understand?"

"Yessir," Asano Sakurai's voice is very… enunciated. He wonders what she sounded like before. It was unlikely any recordings of her voice existed, so he'd never know.

"You'll be working from 10:00 until 16:00 most days, this time does not include your training." He wasn't going to say it, but her position was unusual for a new genin, and it showed in how he was treating her. This was the sort of job a senior genin or chunin would get, and he wasn't making special measures for her until he knew if she needed them. "You will be expected to maintain an active standard of health, both physically and mentally. If you require assistance, speak to Shun. If you fail to do so, you may be sanctioned."

"When Hokori Isan is in Konoha, you will work reduced hours as he is still responsible for teaching you sealing. If you can get specialised training from someone else, register it with Shun or myself - you'll be given reduced hours. I would strongly recommend looking for a skill you could excel in, and get training for it. Any questions?" Asano Sakurai pauses before saying,

"No sir." He doesn't bother to double-check.

"Konoha is hosting the upcoming chunin exams - you'll either join a team that needs a third member, or you'll be sent on missions with some chunins while the genin teams are busy." Inoichi stands, "I'll show you to Shun."

xXx

Shun arrives late in the evening, not long before Inoichi its planning on leave.

"How'd she do?" Inoichi asks, rubbing his temple in the hope his headache will fade.

"Good," Shun nods, a small smile on their face. "She is skilled at non-threatening communication. I put her against a merchant and she got things sorted out pretty quickly by being… frankly… ridiculously straight forward and honest."

"Oh?" Inoichi prompt. This is Shun's area of expertise, and he wants to hear it.

"Her file said she might be a prodigy, which is definitely true, but she's not like any prodigy I've seen or studied before." Shun sounds curious, a bit cautious.

"What do you mean?"

"Prodigies tend to be advanced when it comes to academic and/or physical skills, but are near-universally behind in emotional development. Kakashi Hatake, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Itachi Uchiha are all obvious examples of this. A prodigy may be able to catch up to their peers… but Asano is unusually mature for her age, let alone her advanced mental development."

"You've noted before that civilian tend to have more advanced emotional regulation and communication skills," Inoichi says. Except Asano isn't a civilian isn't even civilian born. Shun nods.

"It gets weirder. She spoke to the merchant wearing a transformation of an adult - one I didn't recognise - and acted like an adult in both verbal and physical presence to a degree… If I hadn't known she was 12, I would've thought she was at least 17."

That's impressive. Shun is one of T&I's foremost experts of adolescents, they've attended university in the Fire Country Capital and infiltrated Kumo for three years to get their information and view on childhood development. To be able to fool Shun…

"She seemed glad to be out of the transformation." As she should, finding a transformation disorientating was a nearly universally experience. It just didn't feel right to be in the wrong body. "I don't suspect any foul play at this point, but I'm going to keep a close eye…" Shun trails off for a moment. "Maybe she's just a unique prodigy, maybe something about her experiences, maybe it's something else…"

"Do you have a theory?" Inoichi asks, frowning. Shun purses their lips.

"Not really. She spent years secretly working on sealing though. Children can be foolish. Seals can do strange things." Inoichi feels a shiver run down his spine. "If she messed with them, that could be an explanation. Survivors of child abuse sometimes have a surface level age-inappropriate 'maturity'. There was nothing in her file though, and I didn't notice any other signs."

Inoichi and Shun share a look because Yoko Sakurai was an infamously skilled shinobi. If she didn't want to get caught, it was unlikely they would, not without a very good plan and plenty of preparation. He hoped, for Asano Sakurai's sake, and Konoha's, she was just a unique prodigy. It's not like they had a large sample size of prodigies.

"Do you seriously suspect-?"

"No… no. Just. Keeping it in mind."

"How did she get on with everyone else?"

"Mixed," Shun says, making a see-sawing gesture. "She was a good listener, very outgoing." That sounded pretty good. "One of the idiots called her a 'comrade-killer'." Inoichi inhales through his teeth. "One of the other idiots told him to knock it off since Kabuto was a traitor. Ruined the mood though."

"How'd she handle it?"

"Well enough, didn't linger on it, but she definitely looked thrown when it was said." That was unideal. When it came to people who worked in T&I… letting sensitive subjects go was not their strength.

"Anything else?"

"She really was quick with the soft interrogation, so I'll be focusing on that to start I think. She said she still can't talk for extended periods of time, but that should improve. She said she has another three healing sessions to make sure her new tongue is working correctly and all."

"Alright," Inoichi nodded, circling 'medical' on her newest file page. "Dismissed."

Shun walks out, Inoichi closes the file and doesn't think about Asano Sakurai again for the rest of the night.

Chapter 64: Lunch Date - Ino Yamanaka

Chapter Text

"How are you enjoying T&I?" Ino asks, looking over the menu even though she's going to order the mixed vegetables and a water. She doesn't want anything heavy at lunch since she's going to go spar with Hinata after lunch - and she's already planning on a protein heavy dinner.

"It's really good," Asano says, smiling softly. She sounds different from how Ino remembers. Overly enunciated words and a rougher voice. "Shun-senpai said that I'm doing a good job. I'm doing a lot of interview prep right now - it's really interesting!"

"Really?" Ino can't help but ask, T&I has always seemed boring to her - mundane. Even before she'd joined the Academy, she'd go with Daddy to work. He'd work at his desk while she did colouring in a notebook on the floor. One of her cousins would look after her while he was doing "grown-up work" and they'd give her a sweet if she told them something they didn't know. Now she was older, she knew they'd been generous, but that had been the thing to get her into gossip, all those years ago.

"Yeah," Asano nods, turning to order from the brunette civilian waitress. "It's nice to not be a disappointment," she gives Ino a wry look - as if she regrets her words as she says them, but is still excited to share whatever small secrets she's about to say.

"What'd you mean?"

"My chakra channels are… messed up. I was born early when the Kyuubi attacked, so my ability to use chakra is… affected." She doesn't need to say more.

"And because ninjutsu is so prioritised…" Ino trails off as Asano nods again.

"Honestly," Asano sighs, "my taijutsu will never be fantastic either. I don't have enough yang chakra to boost it." Asano turns towards the window and Ino knows she's considering sharing more. After almost a minute, Asano continues, much quieter. "My doctor said that my chakra composition is similar to that of a Nara. Obviously, I'm not one." Ino nods and almost laughs, she's nothing like Shikamaru. "It makes learning ninjutsu and mastering taijutsu harder, but I should be good at genjutsu, at least." Asano's lip curl but it's too bitter to really be a smile.

"You haven't got anyone to teach you genjutsu, do you?" Ino asks, thinking of Hinata, ignored by her clan for her weak taijutsu even though she's so good, so determined. She thinks of Kurenai, a genjutsu expert ignored in the face of the Uchiha until they were no longer there to overshadow her.

"Exactly," Asano says, "I'm learning sealing, but Hokori-sensei is no longer my jonin-sensei so he's busy on missions."

The food arrives, quick since shinobi get priority in case they have a mission.

"I don't know any sealing teachers," Ino warns (she's going to look for one though), "but I do know someone who might be willing to teach you some genjutsu." Asano raises an eyebrow, hand frozen over her meal, prompting her to continue. "Hinata's jonin-sensei is a genjutsu expert."

"I thought all the genjutsu masters were Uchiha?"

"Almost all of them were," Ino shrugs, "Kurenai isn't one though. She's got red eyes but she's a Yuuhi."

"I've not heard of the Yuuhi," Asano says, a micro-expression flashing too quick for Ino to read.

"No, they're a small family," Ino says, she'd been curious since unusual eyes were rare outside of clans. The Yuuhi family had joined Konoha almost at it's founding - Kurenai was the second Konoha shinobi from the Yuuhi family. Kurenai's uncle had disappeared into a blacked out organisation - probably one of the war teams - and died years and years back on a mission. "She's probably be willing to help, you might need to help on a mission or spar with Team 8 in trade, but."

Ino shrugs. If Asano really wants to get better it's not like extra missions or sparring is a high cost. If she asks Hinata, Hinata will was Kurenai, and it's practically guaranteed. If Ino's information is accurate, Asano probably needs more connections.

"That's be great," Asano grins and Ino pretends she can't see the careful edge to the expression.

"I'll have to talk to Hinata about it. Maybe we can all have lunch together in a couple days to talk about it?"

"Hinata, Kiba, Shino, and you?"

"I was thinking just us girls, but it you'd rather-"

"No! I mean. If you'd like? I'm happy with just us… girls." Asano says, rushed and hesitant by turn.

"Perfect - Sakura is welcome too, us kunoichi need to stick together after all! I'm meeting with Hinata after she finishes training so I'll mention it to her then. Does the day after tomorrow work for you?"

"If it's less than an hour I can do lunch - after that I'm busy until mid-afternoon but then yeah."

"Let's go with that - I'll come by T&I tomorrow so we can confirm!"

"Oh… okay," Asano says and Ino looks at the brace of her shoulders. The hesitation in her voice. It's a combination Ino doesn't think she's seen on Asano before. She looks… almost shy?

The rest of the meal is the sort of easy conversation that turns acquaintances into friends. Ino does most of the heavy lifting at the start, talking about her team and their training - how Choji's going to fall behind if he keeps stuffing himself on junk food. Asano relaxes as Ino talks, eventually offering her own gossip - Team 7 meeting Uzumaki on their first C-rank. It's particularly valuable information since everyone on Team 7 is practically a shut-in.

"Uzumaki?" Ino can't help but echo.

"Yeah," Asano offers her own can-you-believe-it expression. The name is familiar - outside of Naruto. She thinks it was mentioned in the Academy at some point. Maybe Daddy told her about it (or talked about it while she could hear, which was the same thing). "The Uzumaki were the main clan in Konoha's sister village - Uzushiogakure - it was wiped about about 20 years ago now."

Ino blinks rapidly. Why doesn't she know that?

"Almost all the Uzumaki were killed in the initial attack or hunted down - there's almost none left."

"So it's like, a really big deal that Team 7 met some?" Ino asks, and Asano nods. Ino hums, tucking the information away. She so glad she made this happen.

Chapter 65: Kunoichi Club - Sakura POV

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Ino and Hinata have been best friends for almost as long as she and Asano have been. It's funny to see the how in sync they are. Sakura has always felt like she and Asano are very similar, echoes of each other - Ino and Hinata are more yin-yang. They balance each other out. Hinata has always been very quiet, but now it's under-layered by a calm more recently developed. Ino is so bright and excitable, it almost feels like she'll float away without Hinata to help her balance.

"Hi!" Ino waves wildly as her eyes alight on seeing Sakura and Asano. She tugs Hinata along as she runs up. Hinata jogs slowly to not fall behind, looking at Ino fondly.

"Hello," Asano says, signing the same as she says it. She says she wants to stay in practice. ("I wonder if it's just instinct now," Inner says, because it feels like more than that, and Sakura doesn't like the idea that Asano might be afraid she'll be mute again.)

"It's good to see you two," Hinata says, fingers poking together in her self-soothing habit. She smiles at Asano, then Sakura, before looking down at her hands.

"What's the plan, Ino?" Sakura asks, Asano hadn't seemed quite sure and was tired after her day at T&I. Sakura's own meeting with Team 7 was exasperating and annoying, but not all that tiring. They'd done two D-ranks before Kakashi ditched them and Naruto and Sasuke got distracted fighting each other. They hadn't even noticed when Sakura left, the idiots.

"I don't know about you, Sakura, but Shikamaru and Choji are so lazy. I suppose Sasuke is probably working hard," Ino pauses. Sakura can almost see the hearts in her eyes. "But Naruto is so distractible! So I thought the four of us could work out together - trade tips and stuff. Bonding and getting stronger!" Ino flexes her lightly muscled forearm. ("Is it bad how jealous I am?" Inner sighs.) Ino has beautiful arms.

Ino really did look like a kunoichi to Sakura's eye.

"That sounds good," Asano says, "I am worried about falling behind now that I am not on a jonin team." Asano had mentioned it to Sakura before, but there's still an irrational twinge that Asano's sharing something private. Something Sakura could help with - they don't need anyone else! "I would like to practice sparring with you," Asano nods to Hinata and Ino.

("Am I not good enough?" Inner huffs, even though Sakura knows that's not how it works.)

They all go through the academy stretching program together, chatting lightly. Hinata mentions a new book in the Princess Rescue series that she and Ino really like. Sakura and Asano both read the first few but didn't get all the way through.

Ino complained a bit about her team - it sounded like her team… kinda sucked. It's not that Sakura was grateful for Sasuke or Naruto or (Sage-forbid) Kakashi, but at least Sasuke and Naruto were actually interested in being shinobi.

"How's T&I, Asano?" Ino says, "you said it's interesting?"

"Yes, I enjoy the sequenced nature of the actions. The same check-in every day, the same cleaning routine. I am doing a lot of document sorting, which is not very exciting but is interesting. Do either of you know about the upcoming chunin exams?"

Sakura hadn't heard anything about it from Kakashi-sensei, so expected Team 7 wouldn't participate. It was disappointing, but understandable on some level. She and Asano had agreed not to mention it to Sasuke or Naruto yet, since they would both be insufferable trying to argue why they were totally ready to be chunin. She could just imagine the quiet tantrum Sasuke would throw.

"Kurenai-sensei said we will probably participate," Hinata says, "it depends on how our training goes until the week before. She said that the younger genin teams have later deadlines."

"I didn't know that," Ino says, huffing a little through the stretches, "I haven't heard anything from my team, but Daddy said he'd be really busy for the next year since there's a lot of intel gathered during the exam."

"I didn't realise that was a big element of the exam," Sakura says. It makes sense though.

Once the stretches are finished they pair off and spar. The first spar is between Hinata and Asano. It's funny to really pay attention to Asano's style. It's hard for Sakura to notice since she's been training with Asano this whole time, but Asano doesn't really fight in the academy style exactly. Or. It is, but it's quick and sharp and flexible in a way that's distinctive.

Hinata is always so smooth with her movements. Early in the academy, Sakura can sort of remember Hinata forfeiting all of her spars, or surrendering early. She doesn't know what Ino said to her about it, but Hinata had come back with a new determination. She was never brutal, was never sadistic, but she also didn't let anyone win.

Spars weren't like real fights, they lasted longer usually, still. They didn't last long. Hinata won, immediately offering some bruise cream as they did the reconciliation seal.

Sparring with Ino was… well it was fun. Asano was so familiar it felt less like sparring and more like checking in on each other's progress. Sasuke was good, but he took every spar so seriously. Sakura had only won against him a handful of times and he still brooded over everyone. Naruto was just way too high energy. He had barely any skill past a loose brawling style. Fighting him felt more like a bar fight than preparing to fight enemy shinobi to the death.

Ino was. Ino was sharp in a way that felt similar to Asano. Not as good of course, but similar. She wasn't a taijutsu type, Sakura didn't think. Probably genjutsu/ninjutsu, given the high level of chakra control she would expect of the mind control just the Yamanaka family used. Ino's hits were perfectly pulled in a way that Asano still struggled with, hitting too light or too hard.

Still, Ino falls for a false move, opening herself up to a leg sweep that Sakura is happy to take. Her hand hits the ground hard enough she can feel the pebbles bruise the meat of her hand, but her main focus is on the momentum of her leg. It swings at Ino's left ankle, her foot hooks, and Sakura's whole body levers to throw Ino off her feet.

Ino falls properly but is still obviously winded. In an awkward roll, Sakura throws herself over Ino, sliding into a clean chokehold.

Ino's hand taps the ground hard twice and Sakura releases.

"Damn," Ino says, breathing deeply, "I need to practice falling some more."

"Don't we all," Asano laughs, "somehow, there's always a rock where my head lands." Sakura helps pull Ino up.

"It's um. Part of why I like my coat," Hinata says, voice soft and a little uncertain, but audible. "It's thick enough to give a bit of padding."

"That's smart," Sakura says once she and Ino have made the seal of reconciliation. She looks down at her own thin clothing. "I'm always too warm for another layer, to be honest."

"Oh," Hinata says, "I run cold."

"Don't worry," Asano says, smiling at Hinata, bright, soft, and reassuring. (No, Sakura's not jealous, shut up.) "I run cold too. I usually just wear a lot of thin layers, but getting some padding against falling sounds nice."

"I want a break this round," Ino says, stretching tall, "Sakura, Hinata, as the winners, how about you show us how it's done!"

Hinata uses a hybrid gentle-fist style. Sakura doesn't know enough about the official gentle-fist style to know where the changes are, but if her understanding is correct, gentle-fist doesn't use kicks. Which is a waste, if Hinata's fighting style is any indicator. Hinata can wind up a kick faster than Sakura can follow when they get into the heat of it and get into the heat of it they do.

Sakura throws herself around, dodging Hinata's chakra enhanced fists and fight-ending kicks. She tries to move faster, faster, faster, even though she tends to try and hold her ground like she's a tank. (She isn't, she knows she isn't, Iruka-sensei has told her off for it enough, but it's just. More comfortable.) Sakura almost punches Hinata in the throat and avoiding hitting gets a gentle-fist to the ribs.

Sakura jumps back too late, feeling the numb-pain under her sports bra. She checks in, but nothing feels cracked or too badly bruised, and even though she's losing feeling in the underside of her right arm, she can still fight.

She's behind now though and gets more reckless for it. She tries to get behind Hinata, aiming to grapple since gentle-fist is strangely stymied by a lack of rhythm. She gets an elbow into Hinata's stomach when she ducks under an outstretched arm, but Hinata snaps her arms down, catching Sakura's neck.

Sakura moves to knee Hinata in the gut and jabs her in the armpit when she feels a strange feeling on her neck-

And then she wakes, blinking at the sky.

"Sakura?" Asano leans over her, looking worried. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah?" Sakura does a mental pat down, and when everything seems fine, starts a physical pat-down. "I feel fine. I've got a little bit of a headache. What happened?"

"Hinata won the match," Asano says, the fear draining into amusement.

"I'm sorry," Hinata says, stepping into view. "It's a new move- I shouldn't have used it in a spar yet. It's just supposed to make someone freeze for a second as their body flushes out my chakra. I'm so used to using gentle-fist chakra through…" She doesn't expand, too close to the secretive aspects of the style, Sakura assumes.

"Should I go see a medic?" Sakura wasn't thrilled Hinata had used an untested technique on her, of course, but it wasn't the first time. It'd happened a dozen times or so in the academy, some kid or another trying something new to varying results. Sometimes people got really hurt, usually, everything was fine though, especially if they saw a medic before too long.

"If you start to have paralysed limbs or get a migraine, yes. Otherwise, you're all good," Ino says, throwing an arm over Hinata's shoulder. "She's done it to me a couple of times now. You'll have a headache for an hour or so, and you might get pins-and-needles, but it should be fine."

"Huh," Sakura says. She stands, offers the reconciliation seal to Hinata and trying not to feel too annoyed at Hinata. It seems uncharacteristically thoughtless of Hinata. Still. "Good fight, your change between moves as gotten smoother." A light pink flush rises up Hinata's face.

"Thank you," she murmurs. "Uh. Let me buy a snack!"

"You sure?" Asano says, "you're the big winner. Though I don't think Ino and I are in the mood for a match up to find out who the biggest loser is." Asano smiles at Hinata's frown.

"It was a spar, you and Ino aren't losers," Hinata says. Asano waves her off.

"Either way," Ino interrupts, "I'm happy to get a small snack as long as it's healthy. Sakura, Asano? You two in?"

"Yeah, sure," Sakura says, even though she wants to say no. Even though she wants to go home with Asano and see no one else all day. Still. Asano seems to be having a good time, that'll all that matters.

Notes:

I'm doing NaNo this year on this fic! I'm planning on updating approx. once a week until I run out of content, so if that sounds like a bit too much for you to follow, feel free to save your current chapter in a bookmark and unsubscribe during NaNo. As with my first NaNo on this fic, the chapters will be less edited due to time constraints, but I'll still try to make sure I run it through Grammarly at least before uploading. :)

Have a Happy Halloween!

Chapter 66: Warm Sun - Sakura POV

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sakura and Asano are chilling out at Asano's house, theoretically studying medicine and seals respectively, but in practice are mostly laying around chatting lazily. Sun is streaming in through the window, dust dances in the light. Asano's sister had joined them for a bit earlier before meeting with some friends. Asano's brother and Uncle had briefly stopped by, her brother giving them both a quick hug, and her uncle waved awkwardly. Yoko had told them both that Sakura would be staying for dinner tonight, and Asano's dad was off on a mission.

The house is starting to get that lovely fragrant smell that builds in the early evening as dinner starts to be prepared. The rug Sakura is laying on is soft and warm from the sun. Asano's eyes shine like gold when she smiles at Sakura, her brown hair shines with red highlights like a river stone. She's beautiful.

The peaceful atmosphere is promptly ruined as Asano sits bolt upright and shouts,

"OH SHIT!"

"What?" Sakura jumps up, looking around, just in case. She suspects Asano has just remembered something, but it could also be pain?

("Do something!" Inner yells, running in circles so fast she's a blur.)

"Asano?" Yoko's voice calls through the house. Asano's mom is always so collected - even when she's upset, she's never frantic, which Sakura appreciates.

"ALL GOOD!" Asano yells back, tugging Sakura back into sitting. "I need to summon that bear that I signed a summoning contract with!"

"Oh…" Sakura blinks. Asano wasn't supposed to do anything too intense while she was in early recovery (and while the investigation was on-going), then by the time that had passed, they both forgotten.

"Can I summon her here, or do I need to go outside?"

"You're summoning a bear, right?" Sometimes, for a rather smart person, Asano could be an idiot.

"Yeah?"

"Outside."

"Should I wait and do it with my T&I supervisor?" Asano asks, standing and grabbing her thigh pouch off her desk. Sakura stands again, pulling her hair into a ponytail and gathering her own supplies.

"Ask your mom, she can probably count as supervision, or she'll tell you to wait."

"Right, right," Asano mutters, ruffling through the papers on her desk. Sakura looked through it before, it's mostly notes, doodles, official records of hospital or therapy visits, and some short stories. Sakura sighs fondly, settling against the wall and waiting for Asano to readjust. It can take her a moment to process when she's forgotten something. It was one of her weaknesses in spars too - Asano gets overwhelmed by the options, though she's gotten a lot better since graduation, it's still a problem from time to time.

Sakura takes the bag Asano shoves into her hands, it's got rope and water and food. Weird choices considering from Sakura's understanding, the contract was already signed, but better over prepared than underprepared she supposes.

"Mom!" Asano calls, opening the door to her room. Sakura follows her down the hallway into the living room. Yoko rolls into the living room. The fact Yoko's hands are in rubber gloves gives Sakura a moment of pause, but honestly, there are other things to focus on right now.

"Yes, Asano?"

"I need to summon the bear I signed a contract with, can you supervise?" Asano puts on her best pleading puppy dog face (it's not horrifying, but's not good either, even Sakura can tell that). Asano's mom laughs, pulling the glove off on one hand and patting Asano on the cheek.

"Sure," she nods, "give me a moment to get things cleaned up, then we can do it in the garden. Do you know what you need?"

"Not really," Asano sighs, "there wasn't really time. I know the bear summon only goes to women, that's why I got it, and that I would have to do something to help the next generation of bear summons as my payment." Yoko pauses in rolling backwards and frowns and Asano.

"It's important to know what you sign up for in advance."

"I know! It wasn't my best moment, but there was a lot going on," Asano says, looking both embarrassed and frustrated. Asano's mom sighs,

"I know. You were in a terrible situation and you did the best you can. Believe me, I understand." Something Yoko's voice makes Sakura ache. It feels like the moment Kakashi-sensei told them about the memorial stone. "Go on outside," Asano's mom says, shooing them out the door, "I will be there in a moment."

Sakura follows Asano outside, moving to the informal training area. When the Sakurai family had first moved in, it had just been a patch of grass, but over time the ground has worn away to create a vaguely circular dirt area for sparring and stretching. It was was preferable to the grass that was soaked with dew in the mornings.

"I don't know how to summon," Asano says, mildly panicked tone of voice. "What are the hand signs? Do I have enough chakra? What if I have to fight someone? I'm not ready for a fight - should I be?"

"These all sound like great questions to ask your mom," Sakura offers, shrugging. She doesn't have a summon, and given how rare they are, she isn't likely to get one either.

xXx

"Copy these signs," Asano's mom says, moving through them slowly, Asano following only a second behind. "This will use a fair about of chakra, so just keep channelling more until you feel a sort of clicking feeling. That means you're summoning someone, you'll have to adjust how much chakra you use for who you're summoning, but you'll get to that later. Once someone's been summoned they can pull anyone else on the contract from the summoning realm using your chakra."

"Could they pull someone from the realm without my permission?"

"Yes, but you could stop if, or if you run out of chakra it'll fail. It allows summons to act a bit more independently, but it also means you need to trust them."

Sakura stands and stretches slowly before settling next to one of the trees Hideo had grown. She pulls out the medical journal she'd picked up from the hospital just a few days before. Most information for medic-nin was classified since it was an area Konoha was far advanced compared to other shinobi nations. Medical chakra could also be very dangerous when used incorrectly. Still, the journal included some useful chakra control practices and recommendations for anatomy textbooks which weren't classified.

She reads for a while, as Asano goes through her worries and questions. Yoko isn't as patient as Asano's dad, but she always tries to answer Asano's questions. Sakura respects Yoko a lot, every time she comes around it seems like Yoko's working on cooking, or helping with Kimiko's homework, or doing physical therapy exercises. Unlike Asano's dad, who she's seen napping in the living room, or cuddling with Asano, Asano's mom is always moving, always working.

"Ready?" Yoko says, and Asano nods, looking determined. Sakura sets her journal to the sit and stands, just in case. Asano runs through the hand signs, determination in her gritted teeth and sharp gaze. She bites the pad of her thumb and slams her hands into the dirt; a puff of smoke rises, but already Sakura can see the massive figure within it.

"So you finally summon me," a deep, growling, menacing voice says. The smoke slowly clears - though Asano coughs. "I thought perhaps you had changed your mind."

"I'm sorry," Asano bows, "I was not allowed to summon you until I had healed and had been proven innocent of treason."

"What is passed, is passed." The bear says. Its head sits on level with Asano's.

"This is my mother, Yoko Sakurai," Asano gestures and Asano's mom gives a shallow bow from her wheelchair. "This is my best friend, Sakura Haruno." Sakura bows and offers a small wave up straightening. "What would you like me to do, as my part of the contract."

"Ah," the bear pauses before sitting on the ground. "It is simple, you will protect and help raise the next generation of bear summons. There is much ongoing fighting in summon realm and the bear summons have suffered greatly during this. I cannot protect all of my children, so you will help." Asano makes an alarmed sound as a smaller puff of smoke appears next to the large bear.

It's a much, much smaller bear, looking up at the larger bear in curiosity.

"This is my son," the larger bear says. "Take care of him. Summon me when you need to." Then there's another puff of smoke, and the large bear disappears, leaving the cub behind. Asano turns to Sakura,

"I have a bear now!" She says, freaking out.

"Hi!" Sakura offers, waving at the cub that still looks rather surprised to Sakura's best guess. After a moment, the cub stands and walks to Asano's side, sniffing her ankles before standing on his hind legs to sniff all the way up to her hip. Then he flops down on the ground.

"Can you speak?"Asano says, kneeling down. The cub shakes his head. "Oh, that's fine," Asano puts a hand on his head. "His name is Thorn-paw. He's sixteen years old, but will age much faster in the human world thanks to the chakra…"

"Aren't you going to be busy?" Sakura says, coming back to the reality of the situation - new pets were a lot of work, and while Thorn-paw wasn't a pet, he wasn't far off. A working animal was still a heavy commitment.

"Yeah, I still don't know if I'm participating in the chunin exams and if not, I'll be running basically back to back mission to help with the reduced number of shinobi available," Asano says, blinks rapidly and standing up again. "Thorn-paw understands what we say, he just hasn't become skilled enough to speak yet."

"I will look after Thorn-paw when you're busy," Asano's mom says, rolling around in front of the cub. "I am Asano's mother, Yoko." She looks at the cub as she speaks, still looking as stern as usual, but proud as well. "I still expect you to train with him and such when you can, but I helped prepare your brothers for the academy and I have experience working with my teammates' summons in the past."

Yoko always sounded sad, talking about her shinobi years. She never seemed regretful, per se, just nostalgic. Sakura didn't know the full story of Yoko's disability - if there was a story there. Asano had told her before about how her mother, distracted by Asano's birth and subsequent weakness, had distracted Yoko from getting treatment for the Kyuubi's chakra. It had taken until her pregnancy with Kimiko to get checked and by then the damage was severe. Asano had admitted to carrying guilt over her part in the events. Sakura wondered how Yoko felt about it.

"Thanks, mom! Sakura, Thorn-paw, let's head to the Inuzuka nin-animal shops. I'm not quite sure what you need, Thorn-paw so let me know. Do you want to walk, or should I carry you?" Asano gave her mom a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey wait," Sakura protests, "I still have all the junk you gave me when you were all stressed, give me a second."

xXx

Thorn-paw is happy to walk, at first, but as soon as they start on a road, he decides it's time for Asano carry him. She lifts him in a heave,

"You're way heavier than I expected," she says, cuddling him like an oversized bunny.

"How can you tell what he's saying?" Sakura asks, hesitant to make any assumptions, but it looked like Asano just touched Thorn-paw then understood him.

"Bear summons can communicate using controlled telepathy when touching," Asano says, "something that is immensely convenient since I couldn't speak when we first met."

"That is convenient," Sakura agreed, not thinking into it any deeper on the topic. Sakura had been to the Inuzuka non-animal shops briefly as part of a D-rank, but she'd been exhausted and frustrated by that point. Walking in now, the place seemed a lot nicer.

"Welcome," A young man with Inuzuka triangles says from behind a counter. "I haven't seen you two around here before?"

"I just settled my summoning contract," Asano explained, petting Thorn-paw once on across the pack before placing him on the counter. "I need to look after and train him into adulthood, what do I need for that?"

"Oh wow," the young man smiles widely, but he looks a bit overwhelmed as he does, "that's really exciting congratulations. It depends on the summon since they all grow differently. Some summons age extremely slowly, while others age quickly or at normal speeds until they reach maturity before slowing."

"Thorn-paw said he'd grow quickly while in the human realm."

"That's good to know," the man says. Sakura looks through the shelves full collars, animal-shaped chunin jackets, and pet treats. There are posters on how to get nin-animals their own forehead protector, allowing them to get reduced price treatment from the Inuzuka animal hospital. Another, less fancy piece of paper notes that all animal food is made to unique to the animal's requirements and as such requires at least six hours of advance notice before pick up.

By the time they leave, Sakura is weighed down carrying a large dog bed and some extremely comfortable blankets, as well a number of pamphlets on the next steps. Asano carries Thorn-paw and a bag full of low-level weights, treats, and a harness for training.

The day comes to a gentle end. Sakura and Asano lay against Asano's bed, reading through notes for Thorn-paw, nudging each other and sharing interesting information. Thorn-paw naps on a plush dark blue bed, covered in his blanket. Sunset makes the strange light of evening send shadows across the room, a small bedside light keeps the reading easy. Hokori's loud, bright voice echoes through the house. Sakura is pressed close to Asano, close enough she can feel her best friends warmth.

Sakura lays her head on Asano's shoulder and feels content.

Notes:

The name Thorn-paw is a small homage to my childhood obsession with warrior cats - the first and last fandom I RP'd for until I had my account deleted for having the character name "Ghost" given cats didn't believe in ghost. I'm not still bitter, why would you think that?

Anyway, comments are cool if you want to leave any, hope you're having a good November! :)

17/11/20 Update: I was wrong about how often I'll be updating during NaNo since I really want to edit the writing I've been doing before I upload it so hopefully it'll start going up weekly in mid-December to early-January!

Chapter 67: Bad Choices - Inoichi Yamanaka

Summary:

Arc: Chunin Exams is a go!

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Inoichi was ever so thankful that he wasn't in charge of the Chunin Exams by just about any measure. No, instead he was investigating the incoming international teams, checking with the Konoha teams, and preparing to gather as much information as possible. Still, he's the one Shun comes to when someone else makes a terrible decision.

"I was informed this morning that Asano will be joining a two-person team for the Chunin exams," they say, eyes focused on the middle distance in the way they do when they are incredibly annoyed. So far, Inoichi isn't seeing the problem.

"That was the plan," Inoichi nods, "her jonin sensei thought she was unlikely to pass, but that it wasn't impossible and could be a good learning experience."

"They are placing her on Team 5," Shun pauses as Inoichi tries to recall Genin Team 5. It's a search and retrieval team, which doesn't match Asano's skill set, but that doesn't matter as much for the chunin exams as usual. He doesn't know every genin on every genin team though, so he gestures for Shun to expand on their statement.

"Team 5 was the team her brother, Taro Sakurai, was on. Taro Sakurai went missing in action on a mission after his jonin sensei had the team split up in the face of enemy shinobi chasing them."

"Are the genin on the current Team 5 the same as when her brother on the team?" Inoichi asks, since either way, it's unideal, but there's a chance the team now has different genin and a different jonin

"Yes, the same genin," Shun says, "a different jonin sensei, luckily." Better than the worst case scenario, Inoichi supposes, but definitely not ideal.

"Does Asano know yet?"

"No, she's supposed to meet them in two days."

"Tell her therapist, and arrange for her to have time off after finding out if she wants. Can she turn down the assignment?"

"No, all hands on deck of the exams, as many teams participating as possible. I might be able to get her changed to a different team, but this close to the exam it's unlikely." Shun shakes their head, and Inoichi can tell they're gritting their teeth. Shun cares about people in a way that Inoichi doesn't. It doesn't make them soft like it does some people, but they find waste frustrating.

"Do the best you can," Inoichi says shaking his head, "but don't waste time on this. Asano will manage or she won't. I wouldn't expect this to be the thing to break her though." An advantage of his position- having interviewed Asano he knows where she's strong and where she's weak. Her family is a weak point, but she seemed good at telling who was responsible for what happened. She didn't blame her jonin sensei for their capture; it seemed unlikely she would blame some genin for her brother's death or defection.

"Yessir."

Notes:

This is a very short chapter so I'll upload another one this weekend/early next week. I'm happy to say that I won NaNoWriMo so I've written 50,000 words on this fic. I'm not sure how fast it'll be uploaded because the levels of editing needed are widely varied. What're y'alls thoughts on fight scenes? Interesting or skim past them?

Chapter 68: Open Wounds - Sakura

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sakura pauses mid-stretch, unsure why for a moment. She looks around. Kakashi-sensei is reading his book. Naruto and Sasuke are wrestling. The grass is green a little wet from the morning dew. The trees don't appear to be falling. She turns and sees Asano standing at the edge of the field.

("Oh that's bad," Inner says, straightening up and paying attention.)

Asano is supposed to be at work at T&I right now. Asano never comes to hang out when Kakashi-sensei is there either, so it's not like she just got out for lunch early. Sakura takes a few steps towards Asano, seeing Kakashi-sensei straighten up out of the corner of her eye.

"Asano?" She says, loud but gentle. Asano's eyes meet hers. Asano starts running towards her, Sakura braces, catching Asano as she throws herself into Sakura's arms.

"Huh? Asano? What're you doin' here?" Naruto's voice comes from behind, but Sakura is too focused on Asano's ragged breaths to pay any more attention. She holds Asano close, running a hand over her back, feeling her hummingbird heartbeat. Asano's skin is clammy even in the heat of the day, but that's less upsetting than everything else, Asano is often more cold that would be normal.

"What's wrong?" She asks softly. She scratches Asano's head and tries not to let her heart break when she feels a tear land on her collarbone.

Asano's therapist had asked to meet with her, to tell Sakura that if she was ever struggling, she too could get help. Sakura hadn't been sure how to say that she would only ever want to help Asano, that she would happily sacrifice herself or anyone else if only Asano would be happy and safe. It's probably for the best she didn't say anything, that sounded strange, even to her own thoughts.

("It's still true," Inner adds, pouting as she often did when Sakura refused to accept the truth of her thoughts or feelings.)

"I'm taking part in the chunin exams," Asano says, voice rough from crying, "I just found out." Sakura hums. She knows Asano was happy at T&I and wasn't too worried about becoming a chunin or jonin. Asano didn't deal well with tests either. Still, she didn't see why Asano was so upset.

It didn't matter, in the end. Asano was upset, so Sakura would do her best to make it better.

"Want to train with us? Or go home? Practice sealing? What do you want to do?" She keeps petting Asano's hair, letting the silence sit while she thinks. Sometimes Asano had more words than others. Sometimes she would happily talk for an hour or more, and sometimes she struggled to say a single sentence. Sakura could feel as Asano's breathing started to steady before quickening again. Asano always was good at upsetting herself.

When they were first friends, Sakura hadn't realized how private Asano was with her emotions. Maybe even now she didn't know the extent of it, though that was hard to imagine. Asano felt things so strongly sometimes. One thing Sakura knew though, was that Asano hated crying in public. She didn't know what Asano wanted from her right now, didn't know if she should distract her or comfort her, should she welcome Sasuke and Naruto over to create a dog pile or send them away for some privacy?

Sakura could do nothing but her best, and Asano would forgive her if it wasn't good enough.

"Don't think about it now, okay," Sakura says, trying to draw Asano out of what was likely an anxiety-inducing spiral of thoughts. "Now focus on the fact you're going to hang out with Team 7 today. We can head to one of our houses afterwards and deal with it. Things might not be good, but they'll be okay, eventually."

Her mom and dad had been home for a couple of days recently. She told them what happened. She cried when she realised how understanding they were. Her mom said that neither of them had ever been captured, but some of their friends had - not all of them survived the experience in the long term. It was a harsh reality of the shinobi life that sometimes the memories were more dangerous than the experience.

"It's the thoughts that kill you," Sakura's mother had said, "when something goes poorly, your thoughts loop over and over. You're back in the moment again, or you're thinking of what you could do differently. It's never productive. Accept what happened, if you can, but you can't change it. Move forward."

Asano nodded against Sakura's shoulder and some of Sakura's tension releases.

"Give me a minute, please," Asano says. A minute later, she adds, "crying made my tongue cramp. This sucks," making Sakura laugh.

"Your life truly is the hardest thing anyone has ever experienced."

"Truly," Asano agrees, mock solemnly. Sakura feels Asano feel a deep breath against her, straightening up. "It's too bad I refuse to wrap bandages every morning, they'd be useful as a handkerchief."

"You would end up sewing them into fashion-bandages if you did that. You do not have the patience for bandages."

"I really don't," Asano says rubbing her face on her shirt. She takes another deep breath and Sakura watches as Asano's face straightens out into her public persona.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura calls, twisting to look at her teacher who looks up from his book and looks shocked, utterly shocked there's a new person there. "Asano's gonna join us for training today!"

"I thought I was the teacher here?" He says, sounding maybe a bit annoyed, but not genuinely upset.

"You are," Sakura agrees, "but I'm the only one here with friends, so I make those decisions." She smiles that cotton-candy sweet smile that makes people recoil. Kakashi-sensei pouts, and it's strange that she can sort of read his expressions through his mask. She's seen Asano wear her own enough that it no longer looks so weird, which is upsetting in its own way.

"I could have friends," Kakashi-sensei says, tucking his porn book away and crossing his arms.

"Sensei," Sakura says, "We all saw you with Genma. You have fewer friends than Sasuke since Asano considers him a friend." Given Sasuke's look of slight affront, it's news to him, but that's just 'cause he sucks. He also has a hand on Naruto's mouth, but Sakura can deal with that later.

"Well, if I don't get a choice in the matter…" Kakashi-sensei shrugs.

"Naruto!" Sasuke shouts.

"You get what you get!" Naruto cheers, jumping out of the way of Sasuke's knee that was aiming for his stomach. "I wouldn't lick your hand if you didn't put on my mouth - anyway, you taste gross, don't you know how to wash your hands?" Sasuke leaps at Naruto.

"Ugh!" Sasuke yells. Sakura hears and giggle and turns to see Asano, hand covering her mouth, letting out a quiet giggle.

"I was going to have you three take some D-ranks today, but if we have another person, perhaps it's best if we stick to training." Kakashi-sensei says, tapping his chin with his pointer finger. It would be more disappointing if D-ranks didn't suck. "How about we play some capture the flag, losers team buys lunch."

"Sensei!" Naruto yells, still dodging Sasuke's increasingly lazy attacks. "That's not fair!"

Kakashi-sensei blinks, wide-eyed and innocent at Naruto's accusation.

"Who're the teams?" Asano asks, checking her thigh pouch and wincing.

"Hmmm," Kakashi-sensei looks at each of them in turn before deciding, "Sasuke and Asano against Naruto and Sakura."

("Oh that's so not fair!" Inner yells, "at least Sasuke knows basic shinobi skills.") It's a less honest complaint than it would've been a few months ago, but Naruto still got on her nerves in a big way.

"Prepare to get your butt kicked, Sasuke!" Naruto yells, ducking, rolling, and running to Sakura's side. Sasuke straightens as if he hadn't been failing to attack Naruto a second before.

"As if, loser," Sasuke sneers but looks at Asano with something that, if Sakura was feeling generous, might be contentment. Or at least, not bored disgust, as had mostly covered Sasuke's face during the early days of their team.

"Let's do our best," Asano says, eyes still red from crying, but smiling now. She holds a fist bump out to Sakura who happily returns it.

"Here are your flags," Kakashi-sensei says, handing over two explosion tags. "Usual shinobi rules - no fake flags, nothing too inaccessible, no hospital-level force, 'killed' participants have to return straight to their flag before they start again."

xXx

Somehow, despite declaring lunch winner's choice, they end up at Naruto's favourite ramen stand. It's Asano's fault, Sakura is pretty sure, and Naruto's as well, but that was a given.

"Good job, Sasuke," Asano says, and Sakura can't help but notice how tired her friend looks. How worn she looks. ("She looks like her mom," Inner says, sounding sad.) Sasuke returns an almost regal nod.

"You did well," Sasuke says, not turning towards Asano and instead staring at the grain of the wood counter.

"You did great, Asano! And I guess Sasuke did alright too," Naruto says, grinning, nudging Sasuke with his elbow.

"I liked your traps, Naruto," Asano says, rudely pointing at Naruto with her chopsticks, "they were annoyingly creative." Naruto laughs again, face tinted pink in pleased embarrassment.

"They were impressive," Sakura agrees, almost annoyed. She feels like she's seen a new strength of Naruto's she's not fully noticed before. She knew he was theoretically good at traps, but seeing it in practice was different. None of the traps were too dangerous, but they were loud, annoying, and good at slowing Asano and Sasuke down. He had a strength for setting up a series of traps, predicting where people were going to try to escape to.

"I was upset today because I met the team I'm taking part in the chunin exams with," Asano says, out of nowhere.

"The chunin exams?" Naruto echoes, clueless as always.

"The next chunin exams are in three weeks," Asano says, "they're taking place in Konoha. They're a series of challenges to allow genin to become chunin."

"You're taking part?" Sasuke asks, tone sharp.

"Yeah, I'm mostly there to be a third-person since you need a full team to participate."

"What was wrong with your team?" Sakura asks, putting a hopefully comforting hand on Asano's leg.

"It's Sachi Inuzuka and Koji," Asano says. The names are familiar and it takes Sakura only a moment to realise.

"Taro's teammates?" Sakura asks, horrified.

"Yeah," Asano looks away as she nods. The smell of ramen wafting around them suddenly feels nauseating.

"What's wrong with them?" Naruto asks, picking at his trousers with a bored twitchiness.

"My brother, Taro, went missing on a mission after his jonin-sensei had them split up because they were being followed. He was declared missing in action, not killed, because no body was found and he never activated his emergency tag. His jonin-sensei wasn't found responsible, but was removed from his teaching position."

The air is quiet. Sakura can see Sasuke's clouded gaze and Naruto's thoughtful nod. Kakashi-sensei has already ditched, so it's just the four of them for now.

"I can see how that would be hard," Naruto says after a while. "It's not their fault that he's gone, but they're a reminder."

"Yeah," Asano sighs, "and I haven't spoken with them since just after. It'll be awkward, to say the least. Last time they saw me, I was still an academy student."

"You'll be fine," Sakura says, smiling encouragingly at Asano.

"Mn," Sasuke agrees, though he looks like he's thinking hard about something.

"I'll do my best," Asano shrugs. "I wish they would just add Taro to the memorial stone, let us mourn him properly. I get they're worried he's gone and betrayed Konoha, but he was barely 13, a genin, and had his entire family in Konoha. What's he gonna do? Go and start a farm in Ame? He'd probably have loved it, but he wasn't the ambitious sort."

Asano shakes her head as if to clear the thoughts. Sakura rests a hand on Asano's bad and glances between the boys to make sure they don't say anything insensitive, but they both are quiet, seemingly caught in thought.

"The wound just still feels open," Asano sighs.

Notes:

Are there any tags that you think I should add for this fic?

Chapter 69: A Shinobi, A Child - Koji

Chapter Text

Koji sees Asano for the first time in years and he pauses. He doesn't have any strong feelings about her, they met a couple of times, but nothing more than that. Still. Taro is a sore spot, even between himself and Sachi. His disappearance is what led Noritaka-sensei to get reassigned. For Sachi that hadn't been such a big deal since she just trained with her clan until they got a new jonin-sensei assigned, but for Koji… As an orphan, he didn't have a lot of support.

He was lucky he didn't have to worry about rent as a genin. Still, he had found it hard to reserve training space and he had rarely seen Sachi. He had a couple of shinobi friends, but they all still had full teams and were busy training.

If he had run into Asano then, he thinks he would've been angrier. They've had Masami-sensei for over a year now, and he doesn't feel as bitter as he had. Masami-sensei is great. She's not as weirdly disconnected as Noritaka-sensei had been, and she works to help both of them as much as possible.

They'd taken part in the chunin exams six months ago. Their teammate had advanced, but they hadn't. Still, this is a good chance to try again, even if it feels weird to do it with Asano.

The kid he sees in his head looks different from the genin he saw before she started to freak out. The kid he remembers looked tiny and sickly with stick-thin limbs and dark circles under her eyes. She was always shadowed by her best friend, Sakura Haruno, memorable for her pink hair and green eyes.

Now, she looks like a shinobi. Some shinobi wear the same outfit most days, and he doesn't know if that's how Asano does it, but he wouldn't be surprised if it was. She wore mesh on her elbows and knees, her hair in a short low ponytail.

She'd looked serious in the same way as he remembered. Now, on her older face, it seemed less cute.

When she saw them, her skin had flushed white. Her hand had lifted her to her mouth in horror.

"I'm joining Team 5?" She'd asked her supervisor - and he couldn't wait to get the story on that. The shinobi she'd looked too had just nodded.

"Nice ta' see ya' again, Asano," Sachi had said, looking a little awkward herself. "You ready to wreck the chunin exams?" Asano had turned to look them each in the eye, glancing at Masami-sensei.

"I look forward to working with you," she'd said, strangely formal and with a bow. "When will we meet to practice together." Masami-sensei had said a time and Asano had asked to be excused immediately afterwards.

Now, here they were, in one of T&I's casual meeting rooms, led there by Asano's supervisor who still hadn't introduced themself.

"Masami-sensei? What happened to Asano's team?" Koji asks, aware he could probably be more delicate with the question, but he's feeling a bit too shocked. It was strange, at sixteen, Asano looked like a child. He hadn't felt like a child when he'd first graduated.

He thought of Taro often, but he hadn't often thought of how young they'd been on that mission. He sure Taro was dead - even as smart as the asshole had been, he'd been a lazy asshole. He'd also been a genin. The people chasing them had been beyond them. Koji's therapist said they shouldn't have been on that mission at all, considering how delicate the situation near the border could be.

He hadn't liked Taro. Really. It was hard to remember that sometimes, given how much it hurt to think of him. He had thought he was arrogant, lazy, and at least sorta sexist. He hadn't been a good team player, he seemed to hate being a shinobi, but dismissive of civilians.

He hadn't liked Taro, so why did it hurt so much to see his little sister so much.

(Why did it feel like he'd failed, in letting Taro die, in letting Asano down, in some undefined way, he'd failed. It hadn't been his fault.)

Chapter 70: How did you do it - Sasuke

Notes:

I uploaded two chapters today and this is the second one!

Chapter Text

"I'm entering you into the chunin exams," Kakashi says, handing papers to each of them in turn.

"Sweet!" Naruto cheers, throwing his fist in the air and jumping as if they'd won the chunin exams and not just gotten entered.

"We'll be able to participate with Asano, I wonder if we'll have a chance to work together." Sakura is off in her dreamland, as per usual. Sasuke doesn't bother to celebrate as Naruto has - it's only right they're entered - or daydream as Sakura does. Instead, he looks at the date on the top of the paper.

"It's in a week," he says. He remembers Asano telling them about it. He knows Naruto had bugged Kakashi about it the next couple of days. He can't imagine that's why they actually got entered into the exam, the idea would be insufferable.

"You'll need to decide if you want to participate, and fill out that form if you do, so don't lose it!" He makes that stupid smile of his, raising a finger as if bringing up an important point and not something blindingly obvious. Maybe Naruto needs that though. "Enough of that though, time for some D-ranks!"

Sasuke's life is nothing but suffering.

xXx

He bows before the family shrine, the candles flickering and filling the air with an ominous feeling. Until Itachi is dead, their souls won't rest. Until Itachi is dead, they can't pass into the Pure Land. The weight of so many souls weights on Sasuke, but there's no one else to bear the weight so he'll succeed. He can do nothing else.

"I've been entered into the chunin exam. I will pass," he tells them, 'I will pass and you'll be one step closer to peace,' he doesn't say. He prays that when he kills Itachi, his brother will be returned to sanity in the pure realm. He prays that Itachi will be forgiven for the crimes he's committed after losing his mind. He prays he'll have the strength to strike down the only person he ever trusted to love him above any other.

(He doesn't know if he was wrong to believe in Itachi's love or not. After all, Itachi didn't kill him. Perhaps he thought that was love, perhaps he thought Sasuke wouldn't rather die than be left here alone, with only the weight of the dead to keep him company.)

He stands from his bow and returns home. He'll go through supplies. He'll eat dinner. He'll sleep. He will keep moving forward. He can't do anything else until his family's spirits have been put to rest.

xXx

"Congratulations on getting entered into the chunin exams!" Asano says, smiling, but Sasuke feels like she's more on edge than she's showing. Perhaps because of her chunin exams team - he doesn't know all that much about them. She's mentioned they're better than she is, which makes sense since they're four years older.

(Itachi became a chunin at 10.)

She stretches as she chats cheerfully, mostly with Naruto. Sakura and Naruto are slower to come awake in the morning.

"I'm nervous - I'm going to try and make some of my own seals. I'll be using common seals, not making anything new of course. Masami - Team Five's jonin sensei - said that she's qualified to check them over. I haven't been able to do much actual seal work yet, so I'm really excited."

"Sealing is an Uzumaki thing… right?" Naruto says, stretching alongside Asano, copying her movements. He sounds uncertain, even though it came up during their C-rank mission a couple of months ago. Whatever, if Naruto doesn't care about his clan, that's his business.

"Yep! They were well known and feared for it. If you want, I can try to teach you the absolute basics, but sealing can be really dangerous, so you'd need to look for a real teacher if you want to try and get good at it."

"It sounds really complicated," Naruto says, blushing and scratching the back of his head, "I don't think it'll be my sort of thing." Asano shrugs,

"Maybe not, any skill or lack thereof in sealing doesn't make you any more or less an Uzumaki. It's one of those things. You can't be a good Uzumaki, and you can't be a bad Uzumaki. You just are an Uzumaki. In my opinion, it's not worth dwelling on."

Sasuke thinks about interjecting. Thinks about reminding them that clan and blood are important. But. Asano and Naruto, they don't have bloodline limits. So. In a way, blood isn't important to them. It's just your parents. Just your ancestors, what does that matter? Even thinking that feels so bizarre.

"Maybe you can watch Asano practice," Sakura says, looking away as if annoyed, "see if it looks like something you want to put time into."

"We should study together," Naruto says, noting Asano had changed pose without his notice he jumps and moves to follow.

It's whatever. Sasuke returns to practising throwing his large shuriken at a tree without tearing his clothes. It's not massively heavy compared to some of the logs, bags, and dogs he's had to carry in the past several months, but he'd struggled a bit with the weight when he'd been graduating. It's gratifying to know he's improving, even if it's too slow. Even if it feels like Kakashi is more of a babysitter than a teacher.

(He has been reminded, by Asano's bad mission, how easy it is for everything to fall apart.)

It wouldn't have hurt so bad, he tries to tell himself, if Asano had died. He doesn't love her. She's not family. She's not even a teammate. He would've been sad, a bit, but it would've been fine. He tries not to think of how Sakura would react though. Asano reminds him of Itachi more than anyone else he's ever met. But.

Asano talks about her (living) brother and sister, and he knows she loves them. She has a family that, maybe she doesn't trust, but she loves. She has stability that Sakura doesn't.

It's not hard, even for Sasuke, to see that Sakura's personhood depends on Asano, and Asano alone. Sakura could withstand losing all of Team 7, even if that might be difficult for her. She could probably withstand the death of her parents - he knows almost nothing about them. If Asano had died on that mission though.

Perhaps Sakura would have moved on eventually. Maybe she would have learned to live with the loss. But when it pictures it, all he can remember is how broken Itachi had looked in retrospect after Shisui's death.

He still doesn't know if Shisui's death was Itachi's first act of insanity or last moment of sanity.

xXx

"So," Sakura says, draped across Asano, teasing her, "got any secret hints about the chunin exams you can give us?"

"No," Asano laughs, "no, they've kept me well away from all that work. I do want to remind all three of you that most people take the chunin exams multiple times so don't treat this like a success or death mission. If things are too dangerous - leave and survive. People genuinely do die during the chunin exam."

"I'm not scared!" Naruto yells. Naruto is always yelling. It's fine, it's not loud or annoying. It doesn't hurt Sasuke's ears or startles him.

"You don't need to be scared," Asano frowns, "but be aware of your limits. Not everyone who gets entered into the chunin exams is actually genin or chunin level strength. The same way it'd be smart to run from Kakashi, it might be smart to run from someone else during the exam."

"Why do you know this?" Sasuke asks, uncomfortably aware that Asano is more scared than she's presenting. A common trait of Asano, but it always puts him on edge.

"My team… it was supposed to be a chunin exams team - we'd go and enter into the chunin exams in all the different countries to get intelligence on the nation and shinobi." Asano shrugs, "obviously that didn't happen, but I still got some training for it."

"What sort of training?" Naruto asks. Asano laughs. It's not a happy sound.

"Mostly sensei was just trying to get me up to scratch," she says, trying to get Naruto into a headlock, probably to give him a noogie as she tends to when she's feeling unhappy but doesn't want to draw attention to it. "New genin like us aren't meant to be ready to be chunin yet, and my teammates were a lot stronger than me-"

"Say…" Naruto stops and straightens, "how did you… um." Naruto pauses. Asano watches him, a weary look in her eyes. As if she knows what he's thinking and is just waiting to see if he'll actually say it. "How did you beat someone stronger than you? Your teammate… He was stronger than a genin right? And Sasuke still beats you all the time."

Asano is still. She's still in the way Sasuke has gotten better at noticing, as started to note in his memories. It's a shinobi stillness. A predatory stillness.

"I didn't beat him," she says, after a long enough time that Sakura looks like she's about to beat Naruto's face in. Not that it takes a lot for Sakura to get that look. "If it had been anything near a straight fight, I would have died." She sits, rudely cross-legged on the ground, staring at her hands as she pulls up chunks of grass. "He was stronger than me, and faster, with more chakra and better control. He could heal… a lot. I don't know the limit. He was probably smarter than me too."

"How did you kill him then?" Sasuke asks. Suddenly, this feels a lot more important than it did a minute before.

"I didn't play fair," Asano says, tone almost light, shrugging as if she doesn't care. Still, though, her gaze is stuck on her hands, playing with the grass. "He didn't know that I wasn't an ally anymore, he wasn't on guard against me. He was distracted too. We were away from most of the fighting, but he said there was something approaching. I didn't believe him, at the time, I was." She pauses for a long moment before biting off the words, "not in the best headspace."

Naruto sits beside Asano. He says nothing, just leans against her shoulder. Sasuke can watch as Asano… doesn't loosen, per se, but something in her body language suggests she appreciates at least the effort.

"At the time, I didn't care if I died, as long as Kabuto did as well," Asano says, letting out a large sigh as she finishes the sentence. "If I had cared, I would've waited until we weren't being followed since Kabuto was the better fighter. I probably wouldn't have ever killed him, if I'd waited, since sensei found us shortly after, but…" She trails off again. Sasuke can't see exactly what her face is doing, but her posture stiffens in a long silence.

"Asano?" Naruto says, Asano's silence having carried on long enough it's not clear she remembers they were speaking.

"Right. I don't know how things would have turned out if I had waited, but I didn't. I didn't care about anything but making sure Kabuto was dead. I'm not very strong, and I don't have much endurance compared to a chunin, but I'm fast for a genin. I had one kunai." She laughs again, more bitter than before, "I think it's only the fact that I was extremely emotionally upset and unpredictable that stopped Kabuto from telling that something was wrong. I wasn't angry with him, after all. I was angry at… the man who hurt me. I was determined to kill Kabuto, but I wasn't angry, I didn't have enough time or energy for that."

Sasuke knows the feeling well. The emptiness that swallows everything but your ability to take one single more step forward (and then another, and then another). He understands that he should hate Itachi, and sometimes he does. He knows he should hate Konoha for breaking his brother, and sometimes he can manage it. Mostly though, he wakes up, he eats, he walks to the field, he stretches. Mostly, he takes one more step forward, because if he doesn't, he'll become just another restless spirit in the Uchiha compound, with no one left to lay him or anyone else to rest.

"A lot of shinobi can sense negative intent, so in a way I'm lucky. I didn't consider that at all. All I thought was that I had a single kunai, and that we'd covered this in 'how would you kill Tsunade', the game. A single strike to severe the spinal cord. Instant death. He shouldn't be able to heal from that, but then I removed his head and heart just to be safe. I'd been planning on burying each in a separate grave, but sensei had me burn it. I think that was the better choice, but if he had some bloodline limit, it might not. You never know with those," she shakes her head in mock annoyance but looks exhausted.

A thoughtful silence lingers.

Sasuke can't imagine killing Itachi by striking him in the spine. He can't imagine it would work, but even if it did… where would the peace be in the that? How would that get satisfaction - revenge. How could the Uchiha men and women who were murdered find peace from such an instant and painless death?

"I don't know if I can kill someone," Naruto whispers. Asano nods but says nothing. After almost a full minute, Sakura moves to sit on Asano's other side, leans against her. Sasuke stays where he is.

Chapter 71: Cold Sweat - Naruto

Chapter Text

Sakura looks ready for war when they meet for the chunin exams. Naruto gets the feeling. Asano's warnings sit strangely heavy in mind, present in the front of his thoughts. Asano had found him alone later that evening, and told him,

"Someday you'll have to decide between the life of yourself and your loved ones, and someone who isn't a bad person - is just on the opposite side. I hope you chose to protect yourself, to protect your team, but I'll understand if you can't." Her eyes had welled with tears and she'd pulled him into a tight hug. He'd felt hot tears run down his shoulder. He'd laid awake, imagining Sasuke at a sword's edge; Sakura covered in explosive tags; Kakashi-sensei unconscious and vulnerable.

He wasn't sure he'd be able to kill someone until he remembers feeling Kyuubi's tantalising rage. He had never been angry enough to let it out, but just imaging his friends in danger brought the feeling back into mind.

Sasuke looks tired when he joins them but otherwise looks normal. Naruto cheers, too full of excitement, even in the face of Asano's words. He was going to win, he was going to become a chunin, then he'd one step closer to Hokage!

xXx

The entrance hall is massive and full of tons of strange-looking shinobi. He'd never thought of Konoha shinobi as particularly uniform, but faced with funny patterns, hats, and lots of massive cloaks, he feels like possibly reassessing that opinion.

"Hey Kiba! Choji! Shikamaru!" Naruto calls upon seeing their old classmates. He can't remember what their team numbers were, but they're both together. He also sees Gai-sensei's team a ways away, but that Neji dude was pretty rude. Rock Lee seemed cool until he started asking Sakura out, which Naruto could understand - Sakura was really cute! But he wouldn't stop asking Sakura out. No means no!

"Hey Naruto," Choji says, waving, potato chip in hand. Kiba and Shikamaru also wave, along with Hinata who smiles as well. She and Ino are a little intimidating, so Naruto takes a moment to work up the courage as he approaches,

"Hi Hinata, Hi Ino," He rubs the back of his neck again, a habit Sakura's started to get on his back about for being a huge tell.

"Hey Naruto," Ino says, rolling her eyes as she says it. He'd think she was being mean, but he thinks Ino might be like that to everyone. "Sasuke! Are you ready?" Sasuke grunts and now it's his and Sakura's turn to roll their eyes. He'd forgotten how weird the girls in their class had been about Sasuke. He thinks Ino might be the only one of them to graduate though, so it's not that bad.

"Asano's taking part," Sakura says, looking around, "but her team-mates are older so they probably won't come over here."

"I thought her team was disbanded?" Shikamaru says, looking vaguely curious - which is a lot for Shikamaru.

"It was," Sakura says. Naruto's surprised Shikamaru doesn't know already, since it's old news and Shikamaru's pretty clever when he wants to be, but he supposes Shikamaru's lazy enough to not have checked. "She was paired up for the chunin exams. She knew them already, they were her brother's teammates."

"Isn't… isn't her brother like… dead?" Kiba says after a moment.

"Missing in action, but essentially, yes," Sakura says coldly.

"And they paired her with his teammates? The ones who were on the mission he disappeared on?"

"Yeah," Sakura says, giving Kiba a sharp glare before turning around again to keep looking around.

"Well, it's not like she's uhhh…" Kiba pauses at the united warning looks he gets from Hinata, Ino, Sakura, and himself. Maybe even Sasuke, if he counts the half-dismissive glance Sasuke sends Kiba's way. "It's not like we have to worry about her, was all I was going to say! She's like, dangerous when she wants to be, so I'm sure she'll have no trouble-"

"Kiba," Hinata says softly. Kiba shuts his mouth. Smart of him, since Naruto was starting to think of punching him in the face. Naruto's not sure he'll ever be able to stop worrying about Asano, after hearing her talk about how sick she was when she was young then seeing her, pale and mute after her bad mission.

Sakura's attention is so focused, Naruto knows Asano's gotten to the scene. When he turns to look her, she looks bad. Her face is flushed in a sickly sort of way, and she's clenching and unclenching her hands over and over again. Her eyes dart around the room lingers on various shinobi. When she sees them, she smiles weakly and waves but follows her teammates to stand a distance away. When one of them - the non-Inuzuka - says something to her, she nods but looks unhappy.

"Oh," Kiba says, "she's on my cousin Sachi's team. If nothing else, Bachi will look after them."

"Bachi?" Ino says, looking over the team. They look pretty mix-matched with Asano's tiny height compared to her teammates much older and taller figures. At least the dog, Bachi, is shorter.

"Yeah, Uekibachi is one of the best fighters of our generation. He's a Tosa Inu, his mom was my aunt's dog. She was a dangerous bitch… Asano's in good hands," Kiba says, nodding decisively. Naruto feels a bit sceptical, Kiba's always very trusting in his clan, but Naruto's been chased off my enough Inuzuka to know they're not all as decent as Kiba.

"Oh sorry man," a foreign shinobi in red says, putting their hands up after seemingly running into another foreign shinobi from a different nation - Naruto doesn't know which one, but they're all wearing grey.

"What? You wanna start something?" One of the shinobi in grey says. Another doesn't say a word, just swiping an arm and turning away. For a second, it seems like nothing happens. Then the red shinobi falls to their knees and coughs up a bit of blood.

There's a puff of smoke and Naruto feels way tenser than he'd expected.

"Alright, you miscreants! I am the Head of Konoha's Tortue and Interrogation department, Ibiki Morino. You can all call me Master Morino." Ibiki Morino, Master Morino, is a tall, stern-looking shinobi with lightly tanned skin and two deep scars across his face. He's wearing a headband over his head all the way down to the top of his eyes, leaving him entirely without eyebrows. "Unless we tell you, you cannot attack your fellow participants. Breaking the rules will get you disqualified from the exam. First up: a written exam."

Naruto barely hears the words said after that.

A written exam. Cold sweat runs down his neck. His confidence fails, sinks through the ground and into a shallow grave with his hopes and dreams. He walks in a daze to his seat and stares blankly at a wall for a minute until the time to start is announced.

He takes a moment to work up his confidence. After all, he graduated from the academy! He wasn't stupid! He could totally beat this stupid exam. He looks down at the paper.

He blinks.

There's a triangle, a rectangle, and a lot of arrows. He blinks again. He reads the question, but it only leaves him more confused. The next question is an encryption question - he can at least tell that. He reads the unencrypted part of the question and feels a shudder run down his spine. He doesn't know this kind of encryption… and he can remember how to decrypt things properly for "International Classification Mode 4".

Fine. Next question. Naruto stares at the question about shinobi and attacking and positions and ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu. The rest of the hour proceeds in a similar fashion. Around him, masses of people get kicked out for cheating, so Naruto doesn't dare. He flips through the paper and hopes that it'll make more sense the fourth time he reads the question. It doesn't. He got one for the hand signs… he thinks… maybe.

"Alright, times up. Time for the final question. If you fail this question, you won't be allowed to retake the chunin exams - doomed to being a genin forever. If you don't want to risk that, you can forfeit, your team will fail this chunin exam but you can try again in six months."

Naruto listens carefully as people forfeit, one after another. He doesn't get it. Didn't they commit to doing their best? Aren't they at least going to try? Why are they even shinobi-

"I forfeit," a voice says. And Naruto knows it. He swallows. If Asano is willing to forfeit…

"I forfeit," Sakura says and Naruto slumps as their team is dismissed. He looks between Sakura and Asano, trying to understand why they quit. He knows he's not as clever as they are, but he doesn't understand. It's too late to change though, so he follows Sakura and a Sasuke with fists clenched white out the door.

"What happened?" He asks, as soon as they're out of the exam room.

"Asano knows more about this than us," Sakura says, "and you barely answered anything. Her team was way more prepared than ours."

"Maybe Naruto would've failed but then we could've gone on," Sasuke says, posture stiff and tone quietly furious.

"That's not how that works," Sakura says, "didn't you listen, we all needed to pass this section. Whatever, let's find Asano." She's not hard to find, as soon as they step into the hallway, there's Asano's non-Inuzuka teammate, leaning against the wall.

"Sakura!" He says, sounding relieved, "good thing you're here. Asano's in the bathroom," he gestures and Sakura's off like a tracking team.

"So," Kakashi-sensei's voice says. Naruto turns. Kakashi-sensei doesn't look or smell upset at least. Well. No more upset than usual. "Did Sakura say why she forfeit?"

"I-" Naruto ducks his head. Maybe they would've passed if he'd been able to answer, then Sakura wouldn't have been so worried that they would fail. "I didn't know how to answer the questions," he admits quietly. He never thought they'd be relevant in his life as a shinobi. He'd not cared about them much in the academy, they'd been hard and boring and useless. And now it's at least partly his fault they failed.

"Is that all?"

"Asano forfeit first," Sasuke says rolling his eyes. Kakashi-sensei sighs,

"They're in the bathroom?" Naruto and Asano's teammate nod. Kakashi-sensei sighs again, larger and more exaggerated, then rests a head in his hand for a minute.

"So?" Sasuke says, combative to the extreme, "what now?"

"Now we go take the missions everyone running and taking the exams are too busy to do. Naruto starts studying for the next chunin exam since almost all of them have a written element, and we train some more." Kakashi-sensei straightens and looks them both up and down. "You're rookie genin, but I wasn't expecting any of you to get promoted. I was hoping this would be a good chance for the three of you to compare yourself to other genin and chunin level shinobi, but this will be fine as well."

Naruto tries not to feel sick at the thought of studying. It's fine. He can do it. He thinks. He can try, at least.

He's still worried for Asano though.

Chapter 72: Everybody Makes Mistakes - Sakura

Chapter Text

Sakura steps into the bathroom, more interested in speed than stealth, but it's nearly empty and she wouldn't be the centre of attention anyway. Asano is sobbing, her face flushed in patches as her shirt wet with tears. She is crying so hard she starts choking. Her teammate - Kiba's cousin - is there, an arm on her shoulder.

"It's okay, it's okay," she says softly. The dog is laying across Asano's legs.

"Asano?" Sakura says, not wanting to get close and accidentally surprise any of them.

"Sakura?" Asano says, sniffling loudly. "Why- Why are you here?"

"I quit when you did, you ran out too fast to hear, I suppose."

"No, no, you need to-" Asano breaks into tears again and Sakura settles on the side opposite Kiba's cousin.

"It's fine," Sakura says, even though she had kinda thought something was really wrong for Asano to quit. Asano's never liked tests, has always freaked out a bit at them, but nothing so dramatic as this. Though Asano had seemed stressed about the exam anyway, so perhaps it was just too much.

She grabs some toilet paper to use as tissues for Asano to blow her nose. Sakura stares at the white tiled floor. The boring cream coloured walls. The slightly dirty sinks with water on the counter. There's blood on tissues in the trashcan. Asano keeps sobbing, blowing her nose in the tissues until they're used up and Sakura grabs new ones. This happens a couple of times before Asano's tears start to trail off.

"I'm sorry Sachi, Bachi," she says, voice raw and quiet.

"Don't worry about it Asano," Sachi says, voice soft. Sakura can tell from her face, from her body language, she's a little upset though. "It happens. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No! …No. I just- I just want to go home."

"That's fine, there's nothing special you have to do, though Koji and I are going to go talk with Masami-sensei. Hit me up sometime, alright?"

"Yeah," Asano says, not sounding entirely genuine as she stands and dusts some of the dog fur off her legs.

"Come on," Sakura says, grabbing Asano's hand and pulling her close. "We got farther than we thought we would."

"We didn't think we would take part, I don't think that exactly counts," Asano says. Then she pauses, pulling her hand out of Sakura. "WILL - SIGN," she signs, "NOT - WANT - TO - TALK"

"That's fine. Would you rather I sign?" Sakura asks, trying to pull sign language back to the front of her mind. She was getting used to Asano's quiet stints, switching to sign partly or exclusively. Sometimes Asano asked if she'd be willing to sign, after the first time explaining that every sound had felt overly harsh against her ears.

"VERBAL SPEECH - APPROVED" Asano signs, turning to stare at herself in the bathroom mirror for a moment.

"Let's go check on Sasuke and Naruto then get you home. I might have more training. Can you set up a meeting with your therapist tomorrow? You've got the next week of therapy cancelled for the exam right?"

"WILL - ASK - TOMORROW," Asano signs, and Sakura watches the way Asano's eyes look strangely unfocused and loops her arm through Asano's.

"I'm keeping you close until you're home and safe," she says, wondering if it will be like this forever. She'll still stick by Asano if it is. Even if Asano always comes running, crying during training and exams and random weekends. She'll still love Asano if she wakes up with nightmares and accidentally attacks the people around her.

But she doesn't want that for Asano. She doesn't want to see how frustrated she feels when her words run out. She doesn't want Asano to deal with the guilt that comes with hurting someone she doesn't mean to. She doesn't want Asano to always try to self-soothe by tapping out 'traitor' anytime she starts to feel stressed.

Sakura will stick with Asano, always, no matter what. She hopes Asano keeps healing though, that this is not all there will ever be.

The hallway is unpleasant, and Sakura partly suspects in retrospect that it was on purpose in preparation for the chunin exams. The florescent lights gleam unpleasantly, there's a faintly metallic smell mixed with the industrial cleaner in the air. There are no windows, only a seemingly endless series of hallways, staircases, and obliquely labelled doors. Each step is loud, and very slightly sticky feeling.

It's no wonder the failed exam participants left quickly.

Now, they quickly return to Sasuke and Naruto, shadowed by a weary-looking Kakashi-sensei. Sasuke has a metaphorical thunderstorm floating above his head from his glower and even Naruto looks rather bummed. Sakura isn't sure if she regrets forfeiting. On one hand, she doesn't think Naruto would have the intelligence to quit even though he clearly didn't do the exam. On the other hand, she made that choice for him, without letting Naruto decide for himself. If Naruto wants to be stuck as a genin for all time, that's his choice, isn't it?

"Sakura. Asano. What a surprise," Kakashi-sensei says, offering a dead-eyed smile at the two of them.

"Are you okay, Asano? You look really sick," Naruto does a double-take at Asano's appearance, which hadn't been so great at the start of the exam and had only gotten worse since then.

"NOT - GOOD - NOW." Asano sign, not unlooping Sakura's arm from her own as she signs, even as it pulls Sakura's arm around. "WILL - BE - FINE - LATER."

"Why aren't you talking?" Naruto asks, and Sakura is surprised to recall that Asano has only really gone silent when it's just the two of them or Asano's family.

"She doesn't want to," she snaps, perhaps unreasonably upset at the question. "Don't bother her about it."

"Now, now Sakura, your teammate is just worried about Asano." Kakashi-sensei chides.

"And he can be worried about Asano's health quietly and respectfully," Sakura says, tugging gently to turn Asano towards the exit. She's pretty sure it's the exit at least - the building is purposefully and successfully hard to navigate and it's never been Sakura's greatest skill. She's not terrible at navigation either, it's just not something she has a natural talent for the way Kiba, Shino, Naruto, and Hinata all had.

"Why'd you forfeit?" Sasuke asks. Sakura uses her free arm to flip him off as Asano takes a couple of quiet deep breaths.

"Ignore them," Sakura says, hoping to avoid another breakdown at least until they get somewhere private. Asano hates crying in public, hates crying even in front of Sakura most of the time.

"Sakura," Kakashi-sensei chides, "be respectful of your teammates."

"I will as soon as they learn some manners and the ability to read the mood," Sakura hisses, already embarrassed by her actions but still feeling too defensive of Asano to let that stop her. She turns to Sasuke and Naruto, ignoring Kakashi-sensei's disappointed gaze. "The two of you need to shut up for now - okay?"

Naruto sends her a hurt, mildly confused look. Sasuke just looks angry. (Sometimes she this the two of them aren't too bad. This isn't one of those times.)

Sakura will deal with that later instead, she steers Asano out of the building and passed the small gatherings of genin and their jonin-sensei. She doesn't dally or slow down as they pass shops lining the street. At some point, she can feel the others peeling off but all she's focused on is getting Asano home. Asano's focus on the outside world is slowly returning and judging by her stuttering breaths, it's coming along with a whirlwind of emotions.

"I fucked up," Asano hisses, "I fucked it all up. I've ruined- oh fuck." Sakura can feel as Asano chokes down another sob. If they stop then Asano will probably start crying, but she can't effectively comfort Asano while they walk.

"Come on," Sakura says, "let's run back on the roof." Technically all Konoha shinobi are allowed to use the roofs, but they're conventionally reserved for shinobi who need to go fast since there's not a ton of space on them. Asano nods and Sakura reluctantly lets her arm go.

Still, Asano follows her up, hopping onto a fence and off a wall to get high enough to swing onto the roof. Sakura starts going about half their normal run speed, something they could both keep up for hours at a time as long as they had water. Still, Asano's dehydrated from crying and not in the best state of mind. She'd prefer if Asano was in front so she could keep an eye on her friend, but she's not sure Asano will be able to navigate.

When they get to Asano's house, Yoko is clearly surprised to see them both there. Still, she sees Sakura's expression and Asano's whole demeanour and gives Sakura a solemn nod and says nothing.

As soon as they reach Asano's room, Asano starts stripping out of her shinobi clothes and pulling on a loose-knit jumper and pair of pyjama bottoms. Sakura hesitates before she removes the senbon concealed in her hair and her thigh pouch, placing it on the bedside table. She's wearing more mesh armour than usual, which isn't particularly comfortable, but Sakura's not sure she wants to take it off yet. She might need to go on a mission or who knows what else. After a moment she decides to leave it on.

Asano crawls into bed, wrapping the blankets around herself in a way that doesn't welcome Sakura to join her, so instead, she settles on the plush rug. Thorn-paw, the nin-bear cub, isn't in his bed so he's probably with Asano's mom - or sister if Kimiko is home at the moment.

It had been a hilarious scene when Kimiko met Thorn-paw. It really was too bad Kimiko had decided to stay a civilian since it was clear the two were equally infatuated with each other and would've made good partners if she'd gone the shinobi route. Instead, Kimiko had painted Thorn-paws claws and tried to teach him how to read. Then they'd played a game outside with rules that were incomprehensible from Sakura's brief attempts to understand it.

Slowly, Sakura pulls out the mysterious biology book she'd found at the library, all those years ago now. She'd been a lot less suspicious of it at the time than she was now. Especially since Asano's discovery of Kabuto's betrayal. She'd known, logically, that people betrayed Konoha, that some people did awful things. It had all felt very distant though. It had felt like a thing in books, like something that happened to other people. Now she looks at the disturbing theories on mixing bloodlines and a shudder runs down her spine. She's read the whole journal-notebook-homemade textbook a number of times and now she wonders why she didn't take it to her teacher.

Why didn't she show it to her parents or to Asano's? She trusts her parents, she trusts Asano's almost as much. She trusts her academy teachers and Kakashi-sensei to be loyal to Konoha, if not to Sakura herself. She doesn't think the journal is dangerous, per se. But it is suspicious. And she barely even thought to query on it. (She still vaguely remembers the library letting the books go with glazed eyes, never asking for them back.)

She feels sick with embarrassment and a distant sort of anxious fear. She was so stupid. She stares at the cover, how innocuous it looks. How dangerous it theoretically could have been. It was different from Asano's sealing book, even though they were from the same place. It had just had a useful, collection of information and mid-level experiments. Her own biological book was suspicious. It had information that, as a 13-year-old, she could tell was almost certainly classified.

She wants to melt into the floor. She doesn't want to decide how to deal with it. She can just imagine the Hokage deciding that while Asano had made the right choice in killing Kabuto, she was clearly too disloyal to Konoha for having hidden this book from him. She can imagine Asano being punished for her mistake. Sure, Sakura would be punished too, but she doesn't have to be told that Asano is on much thinner ground after her Mission Gone Wrong.

For a moment Sakura wants nothing more than to punish herself. To make herself bleed. To tear her guilt out with pain and blood and tears.

Then she folds those thoughts up and tucks them far away. Hands them off to Inner to deal with using iron chains and locks without keys. And she stands, feeling out of her own body.

"Asano, I'm going to do some stretching, should I do it in here or outside?"

For a moment there's no answer then Asano whispers,

"Outside please." Sakura nods, closing the door quietly behind herself. Stops in the hallway. Stares down at the book still in her hands. She swallows. It's been a while since she just carried it around, a couple of months now at least. It feels incriminating despite the fact she carried it in a bag in public, read it in this very house just after the Sakurai's had moved in. Now it feels like blood on her hands.

She walks into the kitchen, dread burning a cold hole through her stomach. Thorn-paw is sleeping in the corner next to a bowl of food and water.

"Ms Sakurai?" Sakura says.

"Sakura?" Yoko turns and sees the book in her hands, reads something in her face. Something in Yoko's posture changes and Sakura is reminded that Yoko isn't just a mother, but a shinobi too. That she never chose to stop being a shinobi. "What happened?"

"Asano and I forfeit the chunin exams. When we got back-" Sakura stops. She can't lie here. She should have thought of this a month ago - more. "I made a mistake." Tears well in her eyes and she can't stop as they start to fall. "I forgot. When Asano and I were academy students we found these books…"

Sakura takes a deep breath as a sob builds in her throat. She hands the book to Yoko who looks over the front and back, looks inside the cover on both sides. On the inside of the back cover is a seal. Asano and copied it - it'd been the same inside both of their books. Yoko flips through the book slowly, her expression tightening on a page only a third of the way in and it doesn't relax.

"I didn't even notice how suspicious it was!" Sakura says, choking back emotionally charged tears, "We found them at the library and the librarian didn't even scan them and never asked for them back!" She flexes her hands, feeling the pain from where her fingernails pushed into the flesh when they were clenched. "I'm glad I forfeit. I'm clearly-" she lets out a sad laugh, "-not ready to be a chunin. Sage, I'm so stupid."

"Sakura," Yoko says, voice calm and surprisingly warm. "You made a mistake. Yes, you should have been suspicious of the book, and you should have shown it to a shinobi. But I'm glad you showed this to me, I'm glad you thought of it now. Does Asano still have the book - or books - she got? How many are there?"

"Just two. Asano found one on sealing. She was really careful!" Sakura adds, remembering Asano's many jokes on how Yoko would eviscerate her for studying sealing without supervision. "Asano still has hers in her room. Can we bother her about it later though? She-" Sakura doesn't know exactly what went wrong. "Something about the exam. She got really upset. I think she's taking a nap now."

"I'm sure it's fine for now," Yoko gives her a wry smile, "if it's been fine for the past several years. We'll take them down to T&I tomorrow. I'm sure Asano's supervisor will have lots to say about Asano's neglect to mention it, but I wouldn't expect either of you getting into too much trouble. This sort of stuff never should've been in the library and academy students and genin alike are known for their bad choices."

Sakura lets out a relieved laugh between tears before sinking to the floor. The relief is like nothing Sakura's ever experienced before. Like every muscle in her body has involuntarily relaxed. Like she's just taken anaesthetic and it's about to kick in.

She can hear the sound of Thorn-paw's claws on the floor as he crosses the room.

"Okay?" She can hear as Thorn-paw lays across her legs, a paw resting on her hand.

"I'll be okay," she assures him, "I made a stupid mistake and only just realised how lucky I am."

"Sakura?" Yoko says, a new note in her voice. "Did Taro know about the books?"

"I-" Sakura hadn't thought about it much. She blinks a couple of times, trying to think back to when Asano, Hideo, and Taro shared a room. "Maybe? I don't think he ever read them, but Asano and I read them in her room, so he might've seen them." Yoko has a sad look on her face as she nods. "Is that… bad?" Yoko rolls back towards the counter where a number of papers are spread across.

"It might make it look more like Taro defected," Yoko says, "any hint will be taken as a sign."

"Oh," is all Sakura can say. It's not her fault, per se, but there's a burden in that thought nonetheless. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Chapter 73: Restless Spirit - Sasuke

Chapter Text

Sasuke only gets madder over the hours after Sakura's forfeit. This could have been his chance to become a chunin - to not disgrace his family because even if he didn't become a genin until 12, at least he became a chunin as soon as possible afterwards. After all, no one was allowed to graduate early after Itachi… After Itachi.

Instead, Sakura chose to value Asano over their team. Chose to follow Asano instead of even trying. (He knows he's not being entirely fair, but he doesn't think he's entirely wrong either.)

He knows Sakura cares about Asano above anyone or anything else. Theoretically, he doesn't even have a problem with that. Team 7 certainly isn't Sasuke's priority either. But when Sakura's obsession with Asano messes with his own life. That. That's when it's too much. That's when his inability to change anything become a furious impotent rage.

Nobody listens to Sasuke. Nobody ever has. He should be the Uchiha Clan Head, by law. He should be able to attend Clan Head meetings. He should be able to rent out the houses in the Uchiha Compound. He should be able to do a hundred other things he never learned about as the second-born son. Instead, he was told that until he becomes a chunin he was a child. Even as a genin - with the legal weight that carried - it's not until he reaches chunin he'll be able to use the power of Clan Head.

And Sakura has stolen even the chance to try from him because her friend was possibly upset. (Because Naruto never studied and wouldn't be able to pass a written test if his life depended on it. Because Naruto was too stupid or weak or lazy to cheat and Sakura would rather drag Sasuke down than risk Naruto getting stuck.)

He is silent except for the panting of his breaths as he throws out every weapon he as at targets, as he throws fireballs into the afternoon, as he tries desperately to get his rage out. He doesn't want to hate Sakura. He can't afford to and he doesn't want to. He wants to like his team. He wants them to become friends, closer than friends. He wants to feel like he's not alone anymore.

Instead, he watches as Sakura and Asano wind around each other, tighter and tighter. Watches as Naruto lies to himself and everyone around himself about his mood and his skills. Watches as their teacher teaches them nothing.

Sasuke doesn't scream, but he wants to. He wants a lot of things.

In the morning, Sasuke goes to the training field. Naruto arrives shortly afterwards. Sakura, Asano, and Kakashi remain absent for a long, long time. The sun is well on its hike through the sky before Kakashi and Sakura approach.

"Sorry I'm late," Sakura says, looking tired. She often looks tired these days. Asano and Sakura look worn by the effects of Asano's mission. At least Asano understands that killing traitors is necessary. He looks at Sakura and Naruto's aggressive blindness to the violence they will perpetrate. It's a willing ignorance that Sasuke finds disgusting.

"What happened? Is Asano okay? Why did she forfeit yesterday?" Naruto asks, jumping up from where he was sprawled on the grass.

"I'm late because I had to go to T&I - I had some suspicious stuff I wanted to make sure it got checked out. Asano's fine. I don't know why she forfeit yet." Sakura says, ticking the questions off on her fingers.

"Now boys and… girl," Kakashi says, looking between them. "As many genin, chunin, and jonin are busy for the chunin exam we are going to be very busy running missions. Go get your mission packs and be ready by the gates by 3 pm."

The mission is unexciting - it's just a priority order mail run. They go fast though - it pushes all three of them in a way that felt wonderful to finally be pushing himself. Then they kept going, and then it just hurt. Naruto is the first to stumble, falling flat on his face after tripping over a root. He seems fine after a momentary break and a bit of water though. Another half an hour later and Sakura stumbles. Sasuke is thankful for the break that allows them though because his legs are unpleasantly and his lungs are burning for air.

"We'll need to work on your stamina," Kakashi says. As if it's a joke. As if it's not his lack of training that has left them barely better than academy students. As if it's their failure for not training harder independently. (As if Sasuke could be training harder on his own. Or perhaps, as if Sasuke could force Sakura and Naruto to take their training more seriously.) Sometimes, like right now, Sasuke loathes Kakashi.

"Alright!" Naruto shouts after drinking an entire water bottle. "Let's go!"

"If you start running right now, you're going to throw up, idiot," Sakura says, shoving Naruto. Her face is splotchy pink and sweaty but she's honestly never been more relatable. If Naruto vomits on him, Sasuke's going to have to become a missing-nin for murdering his teammate.

It's also been nowhere near enough time. Naruto might have the worst stamina and is the worst on the team when it comes to strength, but his recovery speed is insane. No, Sasuke's not jealous, why would anyone think that. Just because Sasuke would utilise such skill to become stronger in a way Naruto isn't doesn't mean he's jealous. Just because he noticed during the academy and quietly remembered since then doesn't mean anything either.

"Good enthusiasm Naruto," Kakashi says, face buried in his disgusting book, "but try to be mindful of your teammates. Not everyone is as… ready as you are."

Sasuke knows he being taunted. Knows Kakashi wants a reaction. And yet.

"I'm ready," he lies. Oh Revered Sage he is not ready.

He sees out of the corner out of his eye the judgemental look Sakura sends him which he does not appreciate. He stands and tries not to groan at the way his muscles twinge. Sakura stands, still staring at him the whole time even though Naruto and Kakashi are clearly much more to blame!

Then they're running again. Even with how exhausting it is, it manages to be boring at the same time. Plant identification classes were one of his least favourite so even if he could find edible plant life, he has no idea what kind of trees they're running past. The road is clean and wide but he knows that at any moment Kakashi might decide that some tiny off-road path covered in bramble and animal dung (not that this road lacks animal waste) would better suit.

Of course, Sakura's in a horrid mood, Naruto's mulling something over, and Kakashi continues to be an empty useless shinobi of a person.

It's not Sasuke's favourite run.

Luckily the mission goes off largely without a hitch. Naruto gets them off course when he promises a small child to help find their missing rabbit which turns out to be about three times the size of a normal animal of its species. It's strange, but nothing compared to meeting Uzumaki and learning Naruto is one of the very last alive, or whatever it was that happened during the mission to Land of Waves that Rock Lee, Tenten, and Neji Hyuuga had been babbling about during the lunch they were dragged on.

It would be tolerable, except for the fact that as soon as they arrive back in Konoha (half dead with exhaustion), Kakashi tells them to be ready for another mission tomorrow.

If Sasuke was someone else he would be too tired to be upset about the chunin exams, luckily he has a lot of practice with being upset and manages to multitask.

Their next mission does not go as well.

It seems simple on the front of it. They need to go to a town in the middle of Fire Country, a day and a half from Konoha, then they need to find out if some rich guy's wife is cheating on him. The answer is obviously yes since he feels the need to hire shinobi to check. It's not Sasuke's job to tell him that though, he's just there to get proof.

When they arrive at the edge of town, it's in flames. Large, widespread, flames, in a town surrounded by forest during the driest time of year. Smoke billows into the air thick and noxious.

"Sasuke," Kakashi snaps, "circle the village clockwise, help any civilians out and look for a water source. Sakura, do the same counterclockwise. Naruto, follow me." Kakashi runs into the village, through the road between two inferno covered buildings

Sasuke is only about three minutes into his run around his village, still in the process of tying a bandana around his face when things go from "potential accident" to "enemy action". He sees figures that could only be shinobi, only for a split second, a silhouette against fire then the blur of a jump into the trees and then nothing.

He thinks about trying to find Kakashi, but he either already knows, or will soon. He isn't sure how long it would take him to find Kakashi now, and he was given an order… He keeps going. He doesn't see another human, he's running and.. something feels strange.

The crackling sound of the fire is repetitive in his ears, the ground is uneven despite how flat it looks, the smell of fire is thick in the air but lesser than it had been just a few minutes before…

"Kai!" Sasuke snaps his hands together, flickering his chakra to find that he's not next to the town at all. He's deep into the forest, off a path.

Three shinobi drop from the trees. Strange looking with dark skin, pale hair, and eerily wide eyes, the one the furthest on the right looks him up and down,

"This shouldn't take very long." The middle one - a woman, Sasuke thinks, though her hair is short and messily cut and her clothes are too baggy to be sure - gives an exaggerated yawn. The left-most shinobi wears the same strange tan robe with a white yin-yang like symbol and purple rope belt but is taller than the other two by a head and shoulders.

If Sasuke can just get above the tree line, he'll be able to see the smoke and find a way back to the others. He might think highly of his skills compared to his academy classmates, but he has no delusions. He's a genin five months past graduation against three shinobi of unknown skill. This is not a winning match up.

Then there's movement and he's out of time to think. There's kunai flying at him and Sasuke's jumping away and up a tree-

The creepy shinobi snarls, right in front of Sasuke's face, arm shooting out around Sasuke's neck and he can't breathe-

He grabs the shinobi wrist and thinks of Asano's description of chakra spikes. It feels like lightning is shooting through his veins. Creepy is swearing as he drops Sasuke but Sasuke isn't listening to Creepy he jumping up higher into the trees and looking for an exploding tag and-

There's a sound. A ringing noise like he's been knocked in the head and his ears are ringing but it's coming from all around him and his vision blurs-

"Kai!" Sasuke shouts again, trying to balance on a branch as he tries to break a genjutsu, but the noise keeps echoing through the air and he's feeling sick like he's spinning and spinning and-

He leans over as bile rises in his throat and then he's falling and vomiting the shinobi are yelling something but it's-

Sasuke grabs a branch and holds on even as his arm yanks and his shoulder screams-

There's a foot in his back and this isn't working.

He's falling, he's failing, he'll be another Uchiha body. Another Uchiha spirit unable to rest without revenge.

Another foot from the same shinobi kicking his down. Sasuke shoots out chakra spikes from his hands and his feet and something explodes behind him - a tree with wooden shrapnel filling the air.

He wildly grabs a handful from his pouch and passes a kunai to his free hand, stabbing into the tree he's been thrown against by the explosion and he hears something so he tries to dodge but the world still feels so off balance it's impossible for him to know who. He just wants to get up. Get an explosion tag so he's throwing himself up against the tree. He pulls the kunai out of the tree and towards the shinobi moving towards him in a single smooth movement. He still has a crumpled explosion note and a round of wire in his hand and that tag-

He's almost frantic as he pushes off again, as the sky gets close. He feels the tree explode again but he's already past it. He doesn't listen to the scream of rage that follows him. He doesn't stop for the piercing pain in his right thigh as kunai pierces his flesh. He reaches the treeline and with one hand pulls the bloody kunai from his leg and with the other activates the tag, attaches it to the kunai and throws it as high into the air as he can.

The explosion is loud, hot, and bright and Sasuke isn't watching it, he's already running towards the smoke clouds when there's a screeching sound in the air and then the trees below his feet shatters like glass and he's in freefall.

He's in freefall, but the tree branches are… helping as they skewer him more gently than the ground would from a straight fall. He should be thankful but given the pain in his thigh and shoulder and the new pain between his ribs, it's hard to keep in mind.

His stomach catches on a thick branch and Sasuke stops fast. He hangs over it like a piece of lazily thrown laundry. He just. Stays… For a moment. The pain between his ribs is unrelenting and increasingly worrisome as he realises a branch has gone through his reinforced jumpsuit and punctured the flesh at an angle. He heaves himself over so he can rest his back against the tree for a moment and looks down at the five inches of a sturdy branch sticking from his chest. From the academy's mandatory first-aid class he knows he should leave it in to reduce blood loss. On the other hand, if one of the enemy shinobi kicks it, he could die much quick from a punctured lung.

He yanks it out, failing to hold back a scream. He drops the stick and leaps to the ground and starts sprinting towards the town as fast as he can. His gait is uneven as every other step sends icy spikes of pain through his thigh and he can't hear anyone but the pounding in his head is loud enough they could be just behind him.

And then Kakashi's there.

Kakashi's there but they've used genjutsu before.

"Kai," Sasuke manages to pant out, flickering his chakra and realising with alarm he's used almost a third of his chakra. The image of Kakashi stays steady.

"Sasuke," he says, "it's me."

"That's what a genjutsu would say," Sasuke says, though the best way to break a genjutsu is pain. If chakra flickering doesn't work and he's in plenty of pain at the moment, he's either safe or far enough out of his league that caution won't be enough to save him. "Three shinobi, unknown rank but not that strong." he shouldn't have survived long enough to each the treeline let alone set of an explosive tag.

Kakashi nods looks at the trees behind Sasuke, taking an audible sniff before he bites his thumb and summons a dog.

"Three shinobi, unknown rank or affiliation," he says to the white and tan mid-sized dog, who gives a quick woof and starts sniffing at Sasuke. "I'm carrying you back to the village," Kakashi says, "Urushi, try to get their scent but don't fight, unsummon yourself as soon as you have all three."

Sasuke wants to fight, he's not a baby, he doesn't need to be carried, but he thinks as soon as the adrenaline stops pumping he's going to collapse. Kakashi scoops Sasuke up like a child into his arms and starts running so fast the trees blur and the wind starts to bite.

When Kakashi stops they're at the edge of the village and Naruto and Sasuke are standing there. Or rather. Sakura and about a dozen Naruto's are standing there.

"What happened?" One of the Narutos asks, taking a step forward before another one pulls him back.

"Ambush," Sasuke says, feeling nauseous again.

"We're going to a watchtower three hours to the North-East, we won't be stopping until we arrive," Kakashi says shortly. "Naruto, dispel, you're going in the front. Sakura you'll be behind Naruto, we're going single file."

Sasuke falls asleep forty minutes in, exhausted and in pain.

Chapter 74: A Future to Work For - Sakura

Chapter Text

Sakura can't help but glance back at Sasuke, unconscious in Kakashi-sensei's arms as they run. He looks… he looks impressive in a way Sakura can't quite define. Sasuke's always been a strong but uptight teammate in her mind. Now it feels like that strength has been proven like that uptight nature has been shown useful.

He looks so delicate in Kakashi's arms though, his features so soft in unconsciousness and his clothes torn. They're shinobi clothing, obviously, so everything is reinforced and double seamed, but still, there's only so much damage they can take. Kakashi's arms have Sasuke's blood-streaked up them, drying into the fabric. (Inner Sakura summons an image of Asano, superimposed over Sasuke and it makes Sakura's gut roil. Asano probably looked like this, or worse, after her bad mission.)

"Do you think Sasuke will be okay?" Naruto whispers, slowing just a little to fall back next to Sakura.

"I think so," Sakura says, keeping her gaze forward while Naruto lingers next to her, "if he was in danger I think Kakashi-sensei would take him ahead to the base." Even as she says that though, she wonders. Leaving them behind would put Naruto and Sakura at risk, and if Sasuke was already dying she doesn't know if Kakashi would risk all three of them dying for the chance to save one of them. She doesn't understand Kakashi, she doesn't know how he makes decisions.

"Stay in formation," Kakashi-sensei says, but he doesn't sound like himself as he says it. His voice is rigid, commanding, entirely without the false emoting he usually puts forth. Still, Naruto pulls forward and Sakura returns to scanning the forest. She tries to reach out, to feel the chakra of the trees and animals.

Very few shinobi are born with chakra sensing abilities. She knows Ino has some decent skill with it, Asano's brother Hideo is very good at it, and Asano is very accurate but only at extremely close range. Most shinobi develop some level of chakra sensing skill over time. That sense that tells them to duck or dodge and keeps advancing from there. So far Sakura's had little success with it herself, but that's not a surprise, she expects it'll take a while.

By the time they reach the watchtower Sakura is on the verge of collapse and Naruto looks only marginally better. They had already run to the village and the much higher speed run to the watchtower was almost too much. When they arrive a shinobi wearing a chunin vest comes out and exchanges passcodes with Kakashi-sensei then ID numbers before they're welcomed in. The watchtower is tall but surprisingly discrete among the trees. The big surprise for Sakura though comes when they go down.

"Most of the base is below ground," the shinobi explains, noticing Sakura's surprise, "it's not all, in case of a fight against shinobi with high-level earth jutsu, but below ground allows for more expansion and better temperature regulation."

"Huh," Sakura had never put much thought into shinobi architecture, but it must be thought out by someone. She finds herself distantly curious. Asano probably knows something about it, Sakura will ask her about it.

"There's a lot of bunks here, in case of another war, so there's plenty of space for you guys. I'll get one of the off duty guys to throw together some hot food for you four. I'll also send our best medic your way - he's not officially qualified but he's not bad at all." Sakura glances at Kakashi-sensei but he's clearly mentally checked out, heading straight for some location Sakura doesn't know enough about the layout to guess.

"Thank you," she says in his place. He waves her off and she and Naruto follow Kakashi-sensei to a spacious bunk room. Kakashi-sensei lays Sasuke on one of the lower beds and starts pulling things out of a sealing scroll. There's a circular bloodstain on his vest, just starting to turn brown on the edges.

Sakura and Naruto share a silent look, a check-in of their own exhaustion and fear. Sakura feels too wired, too tired, to rest. The watchtower is too unfamiliar to feel safe.

"SCOUT?" Sakura signs, Naruto pauses, gaze flickering to Sasuke before nodding. The thought of going too far from Sasuke or Kakashi-sensei is almost unnervingly distasteful, so they stay close.

There are attached bathrooms and a shower room with just enough stalls that with careful management if every bed was in use then everyone could get a shower every day. With only the four of them, it'll be excessive. Sakura wonders if there's hot water.

"I'm not going to shower right now," she tells Naruto, glancing down at the soot and ashes covering her clothes and making her smell like the fire they came from. Fire is a comforting smell, usually, but this isn't the clean smell of a bonfire or cooking meat. It's tinged with iron from the bodies Sakura only briefly saw before Kakashi-sensei found her, and the singe of burning hair. As she thinks about it, she can feel bile climbing her throat and her hand twitches for her kunai.

"Yeah," Naruto agrees, looking odd for how quiet and on edge he looks. His orange jumpsuit is too dirty to match its usual obnoxious neon look, and the number of tears makes Sakura feel suspicious of the quality.

"Face, feet, pits, hands?" Sakura suggests, offering a small smile at the reference to Iruka-sensei's hygiene lesson.

"Face, feet, pits, hands," Naruto agrees, nodding and dumping his bag on the ground.

Shinobi sandals aren't ideal for cold weather or keeping your feet clean, but they do help to prevent sweating which is important when trench foot might be a risk. They also dry quickly once they get wet.

Sakura and Naruto strip their shoes and top layers off without hesitation. In the academy, there'd been separated changing rooms and shower rooms but they'd been quickly taught that privacy was a luxury. During their first mission, it'd been awkward. This was nowhere near as bad, especially since they were exhausted and Naruto kept on his tank top and Sakura her sports bra. Their pants stayed on entirely - Naruto tying the sleeves of his jumpsuit around his waist and Sakura wearing shorts and mesh knee covers.

Naruto throws his shoes into the sink, soaking and quickly scrubbing some of the dirt and blood from a scratch Sakura suspects is already healed. Without knowing how soon they'll be heading out, Sakura decides against washing her own sandals, instead carefully washing her scratches with soap and water. She'd normally use her first aid kit, but Sasuke might need it, so she saves it for him.

Once they're cleaner, if not clean, they turn away from each other and pull on a clean pair of clothes. In the bunk room, Kakashi is watching as an unknown shinobi hovers over Sasuke, clearly treating him. Another shinobi enters, a tray full of ration bars, water, and obviously reheated leftovers in their hands. Sakura falls upon it, only realising when she sees the food that she's starving. Next to her, Naruto does the same.

She barely hears as the shinobi tells them to rest and she certainly doesn't process it. It's Inner Sakura who nudges her to check on Sasuke and then points her to bed. She lays still on the bunk, listening to Sasuke's wet, uneven breaths, and Naruto snoring. Her thoughts are empty, even Inner is quiet until she falls into a night of deep, dreamless sleep.

Sakura and Naruto are playing a quiet and rather boring game of Undercover Improv (one person interrogates the other who tries to pull together an airtight backstory on the fly to explain why they're in an awkward situation) when Sasuke wakes up. They both freeze, hearing Sasuke's breath catch. He'd moved straight from unconsciousness to sleep sometime during the first night, but tension from the attack lingered in the room.

Kakashi-sensei is sitting next to Sasuke's bed. He hadn't moved, as far as Sakura was aware, except for the couple hours he slept in the morning after she'd woken up and promised to stay on guard, trying to coax him to rest. That, and an hour where he patrolled around the watchtower just after he awoke.

"What-" Sasuke sits up - luckily too short to hit his head on the upper bunk - and coughs. Once the coughing fit settles down he takes a moment to breathe before drinking some of the water Kakashi-sensei offers him. "What happened?"

"We don't know yet," Kakashi-sensei says, still using that creepily serious tone, though it sounds more alive than it had yesterday. "When we return to Konoha expect to be interviewed by T&I for the investigation. We'll return once you're well enough to run."

"I'm fine now," Sasuke says, swinging his legs off the edge of the bed and standing quickly only to immediately start swaying dramatically before sitting back down.

"You've lost a lot of blood, have some deep bruises, and probably have some cracked ribs."

"What did the medic say?" Sasuke asks, frowning as he sips a bit more water.

"This outpost doesn't have a fully qualified medic but he said you'd be fine as long as you focus on circulating your chakra for a day or two - well enough to get back at least. We'll stay here for at least two days, I can carry you back as long as you can stay conscious." Kakashi-sensei grabs a ration bar and hands it to Sasuke who starts eating it with the ease of someone who's eaten a lot of ration bars. Those things do not taste like anything as much as wet sand, so the lack of disgust on Sasuke's face is impressive and a little worrying.

"Why don't we go back today?" Naruto asks, "you carried him here."

"That was an emergency, ideally I need to be able to fight and react quickly," Kakashi-sensei explains, turning towards Naruto a bit, "if Sasuke's conscious then he can ride on my back, leaving my arms free. Speaking of our return, Naruto we're going to be using your shadow clones on the way back. When you pop a shadow-clone you get the information a clone had - that's part of why it's a bad idea to make too many at once."

Sakura has seen Naruto create hundreds of shadow-clones at once only to have them all get destroyed within five minutes. The only conclusion she can reach from this is that he's so dumb he's immune to the effects of dozens of memories appearing simultaneously. (Inner giggles at the idea.) It goggles Sakura's mind, the strength of the ninjutsu Naruto throws around like candy.

"Huh," Naruto nods, "I hadn't noticed but…" He makes a shadow-clone and sends it out of the bunk room. "It's sunny outside right now, it's afternoon, and a bit windy. Weird."

"On the way back, you'll make twelve clones and use them as scouts. We'll work on tracking and scouting skills for you when we get back to Konoha…"

"Sounds good!" Naruto cheers, giving Kakashi-sensei a thumbs up.

"Sakura, you're interested in becoming a medic-nin, correct?"

"Yes, sensei," Sakura says, surprised. Kakashi-sensei had never shown any interest in the three of them as individuals, instead just running them through basic team exercises and low ranked missions. ("I'm surprised he knows our name," Inner says, mostly facetious.)

"When we return I'll get you signed up for some weekly work at the hospital and the Inuzuka veterinary. Both teach good skills. Do you carry a first aid kit?"

"Yeah?" Sakura pulls it out of her pack.

"This is the non-medic aid pack, I'll show you where to buy the more advanced one when we return." Kakashi-sensei turns away and Sakura looks down. She bought the best mission first aid pack she could find, it's a bit big in her bag, but it had some good stuff in it. The idea of a better one is both thrilling and a little frightening. She'll have to ask Asano about sealing scrolls. She knows some problems with them - destroying them can have a diverse set of reactions from destroying the contents, explosions, or the contents falling out - but she suspects she'll need one.

"Sasuke," Kakashi-sensei is looking at Sasuke and Sakura can't see his face from the angle, but something about it seems to catch Sasuke's attention. "Good job on the explosion seal. You absolutely did the right thing."

"Hn," Sasuke turns away but Sakura thinks his ears are looking a bit pink. It's charming.

Running back to Konoha is a relief. The watchtower isn't like Konoha which is technically a military city but also has civilian amenities. There are a couple of board games, a few decks of cards, some dice, and nothing else for entertainment. At least, not entertainment Sakura wants to use. She thinks she saw something that might've been pornography in someone's arms as they hurried past, but she has no interest in investigating.

After three days shut inside the fresh air felt like a blessing. Naruto is intent on doing well in his job as a scout, more focused and less loudly cocksure than Sakura had ever seen him. It was like he just needed a chance to be helpful. Naruto had asked her about scouting, admitting ignorance when it came to the academy education about it.

Sakura had explained what little she knew - how it helped avoid ambushes, allowed for better routes and less danger, that scouts had to be fast, quiet, and able to recall what they saw. Naruto had listened with an intensity that gave Sakura pause. He asked her to expand and explain when she moved too quickly through estimating enemy numbers. He thanked her when they finished.

Sakura needed to sit quietly for a bit after that.

Asano had never doubted Naruto could be Hokage, an opinion Sakura had found strange. Now, she felt like maybe she understood a little bit more.

Sasuke still didn't look or act like he was back to usual. He was getting better though. After a day in bed, he could now stand and run through the academy taijutsu routine slowly without looking like he was about to pass out. He fell asleep almost immediately afterwards though. Later he called Naruto 'dead last' when Naruto threw a playing card at Sasuke and hit him in the face, so clearly, he would be fine.

Kakashi-sensei had not returned to normal. Not even close.

Icha-Icha hadn't made an appearance since the ambush on Sasuke. He was quiet and withdrawn and when he spoke, it was never condescending or sarcastic or even pretending to be emotive. Sakura was pretty sure he'd only gotten about eight hours of sleep over the past three days, which even for a jonin, was far too little. Even Sakura could tell that he was on edge. Something about him was constantly aware in a way that reminded Sakura of Asano's mom, Yoko, in a strange way.

It reminded her of the intensity of Yoko's focus as she handed out dinner and made sure everyone went to bed. It reminded her of the way Asano added more food to Sakura's plate when she felt Sakura wasn't eating enough. It made Sakura wonder how delicate Kakashi-sensei was. Of how much trauma he had, how many bad missions he'd gone through.

Sakura… she couldn't really imagine Sasuke dying.

It was strange because Taro had died. Kabuto had died at Asano's hand. Asano had almost died. She knew, logically, that lots of shinobi - lots of genin, even- died. But the idea of Sasuke dying felt... fake. Impossible. She had the feeling Kakashi-sensei didn't have the same problem - more likely the opposite in fact.

She hoped he would be okay with almost the same intensity that she hoped for Asano to be okay. She hoped that someday she, and Naruto, and Sasuke all became strong chunin and jonin that Kakashi-sensei could trust to return home safely. She hoped Kakashi-sensei could see them wounded and know they'd be okay.

She hoped that someday, Sakura could trust that the people who were precious to her would be safe.

It was a future Sakura was willing to work for.

Chapter 75: She's just a kid - Hana Inuzuka

Chapter Text

As a chunin who isn't helping to run the chunin exams, she's extremely busy. When she turns up at the mission desk in the morning there's one of the academy teachers who've been purloined for the rush. Ahead of her is a short kunoichi, probably around Kiba's age and with a smell familiar enough she's pretty sure they were in a class together. From what Kiba mentioned at dinner a couple of nights ago, everyone who became genin in his graduating class was taking part in the chunin exams so it's curious she's here. She must have failed or voluntarily dropped out.

"Do you have anyone to take the mission with?" The shinobi handing out missions asks Kiba's old classmate.

"No," she says, "I was told that I should be stuck onto a chunin team."

"Very well," the shinobi nods and starts shuffling through scrolls. There's a larger than normal collection waiting to be handed out. It's useful, in a way, since it means Hana will get to choose better missions. "A C-rank - do you have a specialisation yet?"

"Seals," the girl offers, "but I'm not uh-"

"Not technically qualified?" The shinobi offers with a raised eyebrow. The girl nods sheepishly.

"Oh- and I'm training a new summon?" The girl says, looking at her feet, "I can leave him at home if I have to, but if there's a mission I can take him on, that'd be ideal…"

"Kid," Hana has to say, "who's helping you train your summon?" The girl jerks before turning to look at Hana. Her face is paler than most Konoha shinobi, but in the way that suggests illness rather than genetics like the Uchiha's pale skin. Her eyes are a wide rich brown and Hana's not a soft touch, but she doesn't want to leave any summons to a poor teacher, so she has to at least check.

"N-No one? My mom and dad are helping, but neither of them has a summoning contract, the only person I know who has a summon is uh. My friend's jonin-sensei and one of my academy classmates."

"Kiba, right?" Hana says, trying to recall the girl in the memories, but it's all very vague, nothing that pulls a name forth. The girl nods. "Hana Inuzuka," she says, offering a hand.

"Asano Sakurai," the girl says, shaking her hand. The name is enough to remember. Mom had been on the rescue mission for the girl's team. Suddenly Hana's got a lot more respect for the genin in front of her. She's even more curious why the kid's here instead of taking part in the exams now.

"I'll take a mission with you - help you with your summon too since it'd be a shame for their skills to go to waste." She gives a nod to the mission shinobi who smiles at her. "I can pull one of my Aburame friends who is experimenting with a new hive so we can go nice and slow, keep it a gentle training mission." The girl looks like she's about to cry at the offer. Not literally, but, well, it's not as far from hyperbole as Hana would like either.

"I have a C-rank to guide a caravan of fabric merchants from a village a little to the south up to the capital, or a have a search and retrieval mission for some stolen jewellery," the shinobi says, holding out two scrolls.

"What kind of summon do you have?" Hana asks, thinking on the focus of each mission.

"Bear."

"Fabric merchants it is," Hana says, finding herself a bit curious - full-grown bears are pretty huge without chakra, how big is Asano's summon? Still, a bear summon would clearly be a fighting summon instead of a specialised summon like the healing-slugs or genjutsu-geckos. The shinobi hands the scroll to Asano who immediately hands it over to Hana.

"I've been on a grand total of one C-rank which went… very poorly." There's no need to elaborate on Asano's part.

"That's fine!" Hana is happy to guide. She's a little worried where this small child's supervisor is- she certainly wouldn't be happy if Kiba was going off on C-rank missions without a team he knew well. She knew other clans were less close-knit though, so she hoped it was independence, not neglect that led to the current situation.

"I'll go grab my Aburame friend and we meet at the South Gate in two and a half hours?" Asano nods and gives Hana a wave as she heads off. Now to go tell Muta they were taking a C-rank caravan guarding mission. She was sure he'd be thrilled.

He was not thrilled.

Mom gave her a pat on the head when she hears that Hana is going to lead a mission for Asano, remembering the genin immediately.

"It was a really shitty situation," Mom says, "it came up in the Clan Head meeting and everything."

"She's got a summon but no one to help her train them!" Hana says, throwing together a heavier mission pack. Normally she's taking speed based missions that require going light, but protection missions only go the speed of the slowest civilian and are more in the 'weeks' time frame than the 'hours'.

"Oh… The bear?" Hana nods as she stares between her dog treats and her heavier duty pet brush. She wasn't sure if bears could eat dog treats, but surely their fur still got matted? Or maybe not… After a moment of hesitation she adds both and removes her miniature tool kit. "Well, stay on guard. She was cleared but the whole situation was bizarre and even the best shinobi would be messed up by the situation."

"I'll stay aware," Hana agrees, remembering seeing Itachi. They were the same age and she can remember watching him in glimpses over the years as he fell apart and no one helped him. She still felt guilty for not helping, for not even trying. She had thought, at the time, that the Uchiha would help him. She hadn't understood that not all clans were like hers. She'd known logically that other clans were different, but she hadn't understood that there were equal chances of the Uchiha being one of the driving forces behind Itachi's break as trying to help him.

She wouldn't bear the weight of what happened, she wouldn't let it break her or make her worse. Instead, she would remember that regret, and when she saw a chance, no matter how small, to help, she wouldn't look through it. Sometimes she wouldn't be able to help, but if she could, she would.

She saw Asano and saw a chance to help. She saw a chance to help the kid have a good C-rank, for her to build her confidence and her skill. She saw a chance to make sure the kid knew how to train her summon. The Inuzuka had the lowest level of defectors of any clan or non-clan shinobi. That was for a good reason. A good support system helped like nothing else.

She couldn't promise Asano anything, but she could be a person who offered a hand, at least this once, for this one mission.

"This is Thorn-paw," Asano says, gesturing to the tiny bear cub sitting at her feet. "If you touch him, then he can communicate with you. He understands what we say, but can't speak out loud yet."

"Will he be able to at some point?" Hana asks, curious. This isn't the bear she had in her head. She was thinking of an adult, perhaps an adolescent, not a child. She was picturing someone at least about a foot taller and less at risk of getting accidentally kicked.

"This is Haimaru, Haimaru, and Haimaru," Hana says, gesturing to each dog in turn and suppressing a smile. This was her favourite part of any introduction.

"How are they each spelt?" Asano asks, just as everyone does.

"Hai as ash or grey, Maru as perfection," Hana says, smiling innocently. Asano does that confused blink everyone does, waiting for her to expand.

"For… All of them?"

"Hana," Muta says, approaching at a steady pace. "You are Asano Sakurai." He faces Asano who nods and offers a hand. Muta takes it and shakes it abruptly, but it's still better than completely ignoring like he would've done just a couple of years ago. "You were in my cousin Shino's class at the academy."

"Yes," Asano says, mimicking (accidentally or otherwise) Muta's flat tone and short style of speech. Hana leaves a second for either of them to continue the conversation before rolling her eyes and gesturing to the gate,

"Let's get started, best get into town before sunset, if we can."

Thorn-paw gets tired only half an hour into their run and Asano picks him up, sending Hana an uncertain look.

"You can't keep carrying him forever," Hana says, offering a small shrug, "he'll be too big to carry and that's a waste of energy, but as a pup- uh- cub, it's normal to have a lower level of stamina, especially if he's new from the summon realm?" Asano nods and Hana tries to recall the information her cousin had shared, he was the one who actually had a summoning contract, unlike the bonds the Inuzuka had. "The summoning realm is different than our own, different summons react differently to the chance. Make sure you take him to the vet every couple of months to keep track of how he's adapting and make him exercise as much as possible. Everyone has smaller limits when they start though."

As they keep running, they each focus on their own thing. Hana sends Haimaru and Haimaru through the nearby woods to gets scents and practices the herding loop that lets them predict where the group will be from a distance. She's not really sure what Muta's doing, but she can see insects coming out of his sleeves and entering his collar, some of which seem to be carrying something. Asano is speaking quietly with Thorn-paw about chakra and chakra manipulation, there's an ongoing argument from the sound of one side of it.

"Yes, the chakra will let you stick to me." A pause. "No, you won't be stuck forever, just until you stop using chakra to stick." A pause. "Well, yes, you'll probably fall a couple of times, but you'll be fine." A pause. "What? No."

It's amusing, even if it's a little annoying. Still, as they get into the third hour of running, Hana can tell Asano's running out of energy. She sets Thorn-paw back down and he gives her a look of betrayal that Hana recognises well from training with Kiba and Akamaru. It's cute and highly amusing, but it seems Asano is as immune to it as Hana is.

"I'm not just a Thorn-paw carrying shinobi," she complains jokingly, "I have other skills I've focused on. Now do your best to keep up or you might not arrive in time for dinner if you get into town too late." Thorn-paw makes a terribly sad noise but Asano just laughs. Still, they slow a little so Thorn-paw only has to move at a steady run instead of a sprint.

As the sun starts to hang low in the west, Thorn-paw pokes his nose into Haimaru's coat and makes a whine that is similar yet different from a dog's whine. After a moment Haimaru lays in the dirt and Thorn-paw scrambles onto Haimaru's back and Haimaru stands and starts running again. Hana watches out of the corner of her eye as Thorn-paw slides from side to side, his fur and Haimaru's not providing good traction to stay secure.

"You are so lazy," Asano tells Thorn-paw with a laugh, "I don't mind - lazy people are the cleverest."

The fabric merchants in the caravan are actually four different merchant families who have grouped together for safety. Luckily for them, with the chunin exams on there was a surge to deal with any bandits before international visitors came through to Konoha so the roads are even safer than usual.

"Do you know any sealing?" Hana hears Asano ask Muta who takes a long moment to respond. Her voice is muffled by a mask she'd pulled on as they entered the town and Hana had to resist doing a double-take. She had only really seen Kakashi Hatake wear a mask before, but she supposed for missions… they kind of made sense? It made reading her lips harder, and bingo books would have a less useful description. The mask itself was rather recognisable, but all thing had trade-offs.

"No."

It took Hana a long time to appreciate Muta's company. It's funny to her now, to watch Kiba go through the same thing with his two quiet teammates. Now, she's learned to read Muta's face and how his bugs react to understand him since he chooses to say one word even if three would do better.

"What's your focus?" Asano asks, persevering.

"Genjutsu-Taijutsu."

Hana suppresses a laugh as she continues to help carry massive roles of fabric to the back of the cart. She used to find the manual labour of D-ranks demeaning, some chunin and jonin always do. Now she appreciates the help she can provide. What would take two grown men almost five minutes to carry, Hana can take care of in half that time on her own. She doesn't think of herself as vain, but she's not blind to the appreciative glances she gets.

"Oh cool! What kind of genjutsu do you focus on? I bet touch-based genjutsu would work well with your insects. Sound and sight are probably complementary as well…"

"Sight and touch," Muta says, looking Asano up and down - Hana's not sure Asano can tell given Muta's dark sunglasses.

"Genjutsu is so cool," Asano says, voice a hushed whisper that Hana's not sure anyone was actually meant to hear. It can be hard, given Hana's higher sense of sound and smell, to tell what others notice.

"Come on!" Hana calls, "Help me get everything loaded so we can get on the road before noon!" If Hana recalls correctly there's a travel-stop town a couple of hours north of here that they could reach by dinner if they move without too much delay. It's not that Hana's a snob who won't sleep rough, she kinda likes it sometimes, but she's grown to appreciate a bed and walls as well.

The mission goes smoothly, the biggest trouble coming when one of the wagon wheels near the front of the caravan breaks. Hana offers advice to Asano and Thorn-paw when it occurs to her since it's obvious they treat each other more like friends or siblings than mission partners. It's a funny dynamic, and better than a combative one, but it could be dangerous if Thorn-paw doesn't listen to commands or Asano doesn't learn to understand what Thorn-paw is thinking without touching.

Muta starts to avoid Asano on the second day, conversation adverse as he is, and curious as she is. It's funny and a little sad since Asano could probably use all the friends she could get. Still, it's Muta's choice and Hana will respect it even if she teases the hell out of him for it later.

Instead, Hana makes sure to invite Asano into small conversations throughout the day, to touch her shoulder when they pass each other and to let their hands brush occasionally. When Asano wakes during the night when Hana's on guard duty, she offers the kid a cup of tea from the pot over the still red embers.

"So," Hana says, pulling for another topic of conversation. "Why are you out here running missions instead of taking part in the chunin exam?" It might be a sensitive subject, but there's no use in trying to avoid something that's such a common topic of conversation just in case it might be delicate. The kid seems tough too, resilient. Asano laughs and falls into stride with Hana.

"I get really bad test anxiety. My mom says that my bad mission probably made it worse because my brain is scared that if I fail I'll die." After a moment she adds, "I mean, I suppose it's right, people do die during the chunin exams." She shrugs, "basically I just got really, really scared during the written exam and chose to quit because I felt like the world was ending. It wasn't, obviously. I'll work on it with my therapist before the next chunin exams."

Hana laughs and gives her a nudge on the shoulder,

"We all mess up sometimes, no one got hurt because of you so it had the best possible outcome. Next time you'll be more prepared, or you won't. Being a genin isn't that bad." Not that it'd felt that way when Hana had been taking the chunin exams, but in hindsight, it wasn't as big a deal as it felt. She had more freedom now, she got paid more, those sorts of benefits, but a lot of those came with increased skill regardless of official ranking. She knew some genin who were in their 20s and 30s and were happy staying genin, it was rare, but not impossible.

Asano smiles at her, soft and pleased and for a moment Hana wishes she had a little sister.

When they reach the capital, Hana sees Asano's eyes widen and realises this might be Asano's first time in the capital. Once the mission is finished, with each family delivered to their hotel or home, Hana suggests they split up for a couple of hours and meet back at the inn in the evening to head back in the morning. Asano looks stunned for a moment before a delighted grin grows on her face.

"Have fun," Hana waves, waiting for Asano to start off down a side street before turning to Muta. "Cute, isn't it? Do you remember your first time in the capital?"

"Yes."

"Anything you wanna pick up or anyone you wanna see while you're here?" Hana doesn't know of any Aburame who are stationed in the capital right now, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. One of her distant cousins was hired to help train some rich person's hunting dogs. She doesn't know where the mansion he's staying at is, but with the Haimaru brothers' help, she'll be able to find it pretty easily.

"Yes."

"Cool, I'm heading to look for a cousin, you wanna join me or split off?" Muta glances between Hana and the busy street.

"Bye."

"Alright, see you this evening!" Hana feels one of Muta's insects land on her neck and crawl into her hair. She smiles - she never would have guessed how caring Muta was by his outward attitude. As long as Muta helps keep her brothers, canine or otherwise, free from flees she's fine with his bugs.

"The capital is so big," Asano says, first thing as they meet in the inn's restaurant.

"Yeah," Hana agrees, stretching out her arms, feeling the bruise on her shoulder aching nicely. "It makes Konoha feel small."

"I didn't realise cities could be this big," Asano says, settling on the booth and tucking a large bag by her feet. "I thought Konoha was like. You know, the limit." Hana laughs.

"The fire country capital isn't even the biggest one," she offers, recalling Earth Country's capital city. It had been so densely packed she'd had to hold hands with her teammates so they didn't get separated. Exploring the subterranean had been like nothing else Hana had seen before or since.

Asano looks like her whole world is being reordered. It's cute, in a kid siblings sort of way.

"Do you think they have a really big library?" Asano asks, a good five minutes later as they all dig into dinner.

"Probably as part of the university, but yeah?" Hana, even though she's a medic and a vet, she isn't one for reading unless she has to. It's a tool to learn, but it's never been something she does for fun, but clearly the same isn't true for Asano. Hana kinda feels like people who like reading know some sort of strange magic, why else would they find it so enjoyable.

"University?" Asano something in her eyes shining with an unholy light.

"Yeah, it's like really high-level education. If you graduate you can get a job basically anywhere. The top graduates even get hired by the daimyo."

"Do… do shinobi ever go to university?"

"Sure," Hana says, trying to think of examples, "some people in informational security study mathematics; people in T&I sometimes go for psychology; every few years a couple of medics go to see any updates in medical science since civilians' bodies work a bit differently with such limited chakra. Once you're a chunin you can start taking uhh- advanced study missions, I think they're officially called. You write up a report on what you learned once you get back and everything. It's part of becoming a jonin since you're supposed to have a mastery of your specialisation."

"That is… so cool. Oh I bet mathematics and art would both impact seals…" Asano's eyes are so wide it's eerie and Hana feels out of her depth. The Inuzuka, while not dumb, don't tend towards being academics. That's more for the Nara, Yamanaka, Aburame if one's looking to stereotype based on clan.

"Muta, your cousin's just graduated in agriculture and like. Bug biology or something recently, right?"

"Yes."

"Would you share anything you think Asano might find useful if she wants to go to university?"

"…" Muta looks at Hana for a moment, as if telling her she's asking too much of him before he sighs and looks at Asano for a while. "It was worth it. Lots of new viewpoints - many wrong. Brought new information to the clan."

Asano watches Muta intently even as he returns to eating.

"It's expensive, I think," Hana says, thoughtful. Without a clan Asano might find it difficult to fund, "but if you're studying something Konoha considers valuable it might fund it." Asano nods like she's agreeing to go to war. Honestly, this girl is too cute.

Chapter 76: Things Go Bad Again - Kakashi

Chapter Text

Kakashi-the-ANBU returns the clients (genin) to Konoha safely. He even delivers Sasuke Uchiha to the hospital before dismissing (leaving) the other two to go report. The Hokage is busy because of the chunin exams so Kakashi is directed to Shikaku Nara, jonin commander, who only glances at Kakashi before putting away his other work and sighing.

"What's gone wrong now?"

"Massacre of a town south-east of Konoha, Sasuke Uchiha was led off and ambushed during Team 7's initial investigation of the town by three shinobi. He is in stable condition and should be able to return to missions within the next week." Kakashi holds still, keeps the screaming in his brain to background white noise.

Shikaku rubs at his temples and gestures for Kakashi to take a seat. If he was more than an empty shinobi to be commanded, Kakashi would feel bad for adding another thing to Shikaku's plate. Luckily, Danzo's teachings come in handy, and Kakashi feels nothing. (A lie - Kakashi feels so much. There are too many emotions to process, too little emotional intelligence to understand, and just enough therapy to know what's missing but not how to fix it.)

"Do you injured?"

"No."

"Did you see the shinobi?"

"No. Sasuke Uchiha's description matched the uniform of the sound shinobi taking part in the chunin exams. One of my nin-dogs got their scent."

"Alright, well that's good at least. Any indication that this was a targeted attack?"

"No. According to Sasuke Uchiha's report, they didn't make any reference to his family or eyes. Given he was able to get away I would be surprised if they were expecting to run into shinobi at all." Distantly, Kakashi can feel some part of himself try to feel things about the idea of his student being targeted, but it's so completely suppressed he can't even tell what emotion it will be once he falls apart. Shikaku hums, eyes distant and thoughtful.

"I think Hana Inuzuka just got back from a mission a couple of hours ago, it was a light one, so she can help track as part of a team. "

"Permission to join the team?" Kakashi feels the divisions in his head that keep him stable start to wobble now that he's back in Konoha but he forces them to hold until he's alone. Until he can break down without breaking anyone.

"Denied - your genin are your first priority. If there's no sign it was a targeted attack, Team 7 will be deployed again soon because of the personnel shortages caused by the chunin exams. I want you to stay with them." Shikaku looks sympathetic but unlikely to change his mind. Kakashi understands. Twelve years after the Kyuubi attack and five years after the Uchiha Massacre, Konoha still has less shinobi than ideal. During the chunin exams, even a set of genin like Team 7 would be put to work, with or without Kakashi's presence. If he wasn't there, they'd probably get a chunin to look after them, but Kakashi doesn't trust himself to keep them safe, let alone some career chunin that could trip and drown because they never bothered to master water-jutsu.

"Yes sir."

Kakashi falls apart in the safety of his apartment, surrounded by his dogs. He falls apart imaging Sasuke, dead.

He remembers Itachi, a child and part of ANBU. He remembers feeling disappointed in himself and in the Hokage - he should've taught Itachi, prodigy to prodigy. It was his responsibility to form Itachi; as Minato formed him; as Jiraiya did for Minato; as the Hokage did for Jiraiya. But Kakashi was too weak, too broken by the death of his precious people. So Itachi came to him too late, too broken, and too good at hiding his shattered psyche for Kakashi to help.

He remembers his hand going through Rin's chest, too fast to feel fleshy but with Obito's Sharingan wide open to capture every moment in perfect visual detail. He remembers looking down at his blood-soaked hand, Rin's body on the ground.

He remembers Obito. Young and angry. Younger and (obviously, now, in retrospect) lonely. Only a little older, and dead.

He imagines his hand in Sasuke's chest. (He remembers Itachi boasting about his little brother - the only time he seemed truly happy. The only Kakashi thought he might okay.) He imagines Sasuke with empty, bloody eyes. He imagines Sasuke dead in the Uchiha compound at his brother's hand.

Kakashi can't afford to lose anyone else, and it's too late to not care.

Kakashi crouches on the roof of Sasuke's house, listening to the pattern of his breathing. He'd broken into the hospital earlier and gotten the report which said Sasuke would be fine to return to missions the day after tomorrow - it would've been earlier but the delay in treatment added to the complication. It was times like these that Kakashi was reminded of the hospital in its heyday with Tsunade kicking into shape whenever she wasn't on a mission.

Not that Kakashi begrudged Tsunade her disappearance, it was something Kakashi almost wished he had in his future instead of just another dead ANBU once his genin graduated. Still, Kakashi knew not to overvalue himself - he wasn't on Tsunade's level, as far as prodigies go, he was one of the weakest, if not the weakest.

Still, the weakest of Konoha's prodigies wasn't nothing. Sasuke breaths slowly and steadily, a deep inhale, pause, and a slow exhale. If Kakashi could keep his genin breathing, that'd be enough.

"Asano was sleep when I went over," Sakura is saying. Kakashi stays in the trees twenty feet away, listening. He's always listening, listening, listening especially since Sakura turned in a book with Tsunade and Orochimaru's handwriting in it. They'd even called in the Hokage to confirm. Sakura and Asano. Honestly not who he would have expected trouble from. His bad. He won't make that mistake again. "She just got back from her mission a couple of hours before us."

"Maybe we can hang out today!" Naruto cheers, "do you think she could take a mission with us since she's taking missions right now?"

"I don't know…" Sakura sounds like she's going to beg Kakashi to let Asano on a mission, if not just straight out demand it. It's not like Kakashi's against the idea, in theory, the four shinobi team is too inflexible in his opinion. But it's the way Konoha is and Sakura needs to have her absolute attachment to Asano loosened a bit. Still, if he can get a double mission maybe Asano could be on the other team along with a chunin who's aiming for jonin - they're always good to work with.

"Good morning, my cute genin," Kakashi flashes over in front of them. "Today you three will be doing some academic training set individually by yours truly!" It was amazing what could be accomplished when you didn't sleep and also were nearly hysteric with anxiety! So productive! Totally not destructive! So what if he'd taken some stimulant medication designed for ANBU personnel on missions where they couldn't sleep for forty plus hours at a time? The point was: so productive!

"Sakura," He turns to the girl, currently the tallest of the three after her recent growth spurt, "I have something a little special for you since you've been working on medicine for a while," he pulls the seal out of his pouch and pulls out the pig hind leg, "you're going to be working on giving sutures. I'll make some wounds in just a minute and you'll sew them up as best as you can!" Sakura takes the leg, grimacing slightly even as Kakashi can read what he thinks is probably excitement - recognising other people's emotions has never been his strong suit - in her eyes.

"Naruto," He spins towards his sensei's son. "You'll be working with Pakkun today!" It'd normally be a little chakra intensive for a rest day, but he thinks Pakkun will be perfect for Naruto since he seriously doubts Naruto will be able to stay on task without reinforcement, so he had Pakkun join him. His pack lives in his apartment after all - they're nin-animals but not technically summons since they aren't from the summoning realm. They're dogs that he's trained (his hobby!) that stay in his house, his summoning ninjutsu just brings them from his house to where he is.

Pakkun runs up next to him.

"I have very soft paws," Pakkun confides, "if you're very good, I'll let you touch them."

"You'll be smelling samples from a beginner tracking kit - here's a list of scent terms and their definitions. Pakkun will help guide you." It's a pretty fun introduction, in Kakashi's opinion. Once Naruto's smelled everything, Pakkun will direct him to find similar smells in the wild and compare what's the same and what's different. It can be overwhelming, and it's not as useful as some of the grosser kits like urine and scat tracking, but it's for beginners, so Kakashi'll be generous. This time.

"You got it, Sensei! I'll master it in no time!" Naruto yells, too loud for sensitive ears, but Kakashi's used to Gai so he doesn't even flinch.

"Sasuke, you'll be working with me. You can't do anything physically intense since you're still healing," Kakashi says, watching as Sasuke looks on the verge of revolt at his words. "Instead you and I are going to be working on making and breaking genjutsu. The more creative you are, the better you'll do with genjutsu," one of the reasons Kakashi wasn't very good at genjutsu, he just wasn't that creative of a person, "but having some prepared is often useful."

The next morning, Kakashi is still laying in bed trying to work up the will to live when one of the important mission hawks arrives at his window.

C-rank mission; urgent

Kakashi sighs and throws on his mission vest and runs to the mission desk at full speed.

"One of the villages to the north has been dealing with the drought after the local well dried up. The two nearest wells are both dry and the recent delivery of water was stolen. Most high-level teams are already busy, and it's not expected to be dangerous."

"Stolen?" Kakashi prompts, it's a strange time for water to be stolen since there were a higher number of jobs this summer thanks to tourists visiting for the chunin exams and fewer bandits because they'd all been cleared out (murdered) for the same reason. The shinobi behind the mission desk glances around the room before saying,

"Likely as part of you know, the recent…" Her trailing off puts Kakashi on edge because he knows exactly what she's talking about. The strange increase in international shinobi attacks that had yet been pinned down on where they'd been from. Theoretically unrelated to the shinobi who attacked Sasuke, but it's dangerous to assume a coincidence.

"Why's it a C-rank then?" Shinobi attacks would put a mission up at B-rank, at least, possibly higher depending on how much the village was willing to pay.

"The attacks in the area were carried out by bandits and a missing-nin who were killed just a little over a week ago, it's taken this long to arrange the mission, even with the ASAP attached. There shouldn't be any danger, but just in case the mission specifies at least one jonin."

Kakashi looks at the scroll wearily but takes it - it was chosen specifically for him. He could leave the genin behind, but then they'd stop training. (They were lazy that way. Kakashi just couldn't understand it.) The only reason to leave them behind was how slow they were, but this would just give them another chance to practice speeding up.

Sasuke looks better this lovely late morning, even as Naruto and Sakura yell at Kakashi for being late. The blood replenishment had clearly kicked in.

"We've got another mission!" Kakashi says, trying to sound not dead inside. His level of success is unclear but that's not too important. "We leave in four hours so go get some food, pack, tell your loved ones goodbye. All that. We'll be back around two weeks."

"That's just in time for the final chunin exams tournament, right?" Sakura says, Kakashi checks his mental calendar then shrugs because he didn't bother to remember. "I think it is. Asano's brother, Hideo, got into the finals along with Ino. Ino's planning on kicking Hinata's cousin, Neji's ass. He beat Hinata so bad that she's still in the hospital and might have permanent heart damage."

"Hinata?" Naruto asks, looking shocked. Kakashi doesn't know the Neji kid, but he thinks he might remember seeing Hinata once. He can maybe get the shock, she looked like a doll, from what he remembered. Just very cute, very non-threatening.

"Yeah, Ino says Hinata did pretty good, but Neji's a year older and prodigy so when she managed to hit him it only made him madder."

"What a jerk! I hope Ino beats him!"

"Yeah, I'm going to go watch with Asano, you two want to join us?" Sakura pauses and rolls her eyes, "Asano said I should ask."

"So unkind to your poor sensei," Kakashi says, not even bothering to pretend to be actually upset, "not even inviting him." Sakura stares at him for an eerie moment.

"You're friends with Asano's uncle, Yohei, aren't you? I think he'll be sitting with us since Asano's little sister and mom aren't coming and her dad will probably be on a mission." It takes a minute for Kakashi to remember that Yohei is one of Yamato's undercover names while he's pretending to be related to Hideo Sakurai to teach him mokuton. "Do you wanna join us?"

"No… thank you," Kakashi manages, trying not to grimace at the thought of willingly attending the chunin exams finals. Look, it's probably pretty cool to civilians who rarely, if ever, see shinobi in action, and he's sure it's important to the genin taking part. But as an adult jonin who reached chunin like two decades ago, it just doesn't have much appeal. The jutsu are weak, the strategy is annoying, and the noise is overwhelming. He'll probably get tapped as security, but then at least he knows he didn't submit himself to the horror of the stadium.

"I wanna go!" Naruto says, grinning, "I don't think I've met Hideo, you'll have to point him out so I can cheer for him!"

"Hm," Sasuke says, looking away, "I have a ticket already." Kakashi does too. All clans get tickets, and if you have a clan of one… Well, there's not much competition.

"You'll sit with us though?" Naruto says, "or are you too good for us?" Sasuke kicks Naruto in the leg but doesn't go to actually fight him.

"Might as well," Sasuke shrugs.

"Why isn't Asano's mom or sister going?"

"Her sister doesn't want to be a shinobi," Sakura says, lets out a laugh, "she said it's boring. I guess since her whole family are shinobi, nothing much surprises her about it anymore. She thinks sports are the coolest thing and has just decided she's going to move to the Fire Country Capital since that's where Asano's last mission went and Asano said it's bigger than Konoha by a lot. Asano's mom is in a wheelchair and I don't think she likes being in crowds."

Kakashi is unfortunately reminded that Asano's mother is Yoko Hayashi. Hmm. He's suddenly glad again that Asano isn't on his genin team no matter how much easier it would make teamwork.

"Alright, scram," Kakashi waves them all off before going to stand frozen in front of the memorial stone for an hour or two. It feels nice, when the pain of Obito, Rin, and Minato's deaths is sharp enough that his brain goes quiet.

The mission is slow going once they reach the wagons full of water. As per the mission, Kakashi seals all the barrels into scrolls so they can move faster but Sakura pulls a muscle in her leg just as they start running towards the drop off point. Then Naruto gets distracted by a weird mushroom and Sasuke is in a bad mood. Kakashi has never been so tempted to abandon them here and force them to make their own way back to Konoha. It'd probably be a good learning experience.

Since the village is on the edge of Fire Country, it's a long way to go, even at shinobi speeds.

It's the morning of the fifth day when things go very bad.

It starts fast with the feeling of incoming chakra, a lot of incoming chakra, in a very condensed form.

"Attack incoming," Kakashi barks, falling back on ANBU habits to not panic about the almost defenceless genin with him. The speed and density of the chakra is A-rank, minimum, and Kakashi is not at his best.

(Kakashi hasn't been his best since he was removed from ANBU despite wanting to stay. He hasn't been his best as he's been forced into therapy and mandatory mission breaks and Gai has noticed him falling behind on his conditioning and now it's too late and his genin are going to die-)

The presumed enemy doesn't slow as they burst from the trees and Kakashi sees Orochimaru. One of the maybe two dozen people alive who can beat him flat. It's not a good matchup for Kakashi, it just isn't. Still, Orochimaru is diving for his genin and Kakashi moves to block him, powering up a chidori and aiming straight for the lungs, hoping to go through to the heart.

Instead, Orochimaru's arm moves faster than Kakashi and hits him so hard in the cheekbone Kakashi can feel it shatter as he's thrown into the nearby tree. A rib or maybe two cracks on impact. Still, there's no time to think about it as Naruto creates a couple hundred clones and Sakura whispers too loudly in Sasuke's ear about trying to escape.

Sasuke's eyes are locked on Orochimaru. Kakashi feels acid at the back of his throat. There's fear in Sasuke's eyes, as there should be, but Kakashi recognises the covetous look in them as well. He's seen them in Obito's eyes, in his own, in Itachi's. They were the eyes of someone who wanted power. Who wanted to be strong enough to be feared.

Kakashi hates to think of what Sasuke would do to get power, but that's for later.

Orochimaru's arms move faster than Kakashi's genin are likely able to track and slam into the ground and then there's one of the larger snake summons. Luckily not Manda, but that's a faint victory. Maybe if he'd summoned Manda, the master snake would have killed Orochimaru after he killed the four of them.

The snake moves so fast it looks like it's flying as it destroys swaths of Naruto's shadow-clone army, and when the snake moves through the trees and out of view, Kakashi can't see a single Naruto. He hopes the original is setting up traps or running for help. He doesn't have time to think about it though because Orochimaru is the deadliest enemy and he's taunting Sasuke.

The words sound like white noise in Kakashi's head (probably the concussion) but even he can get the gist. 'Power, Itachi, join me, blah de blah de blah.' Sasuke blows a fireball and bounces off trees and judging by his hand signs and Orochimaru's laugh, probably tried a genjutsu too. Sakura is pulling something out of her-

Kakashi smells poison. He looks at Sakura's kunai and sees the sheen and- Kakashi didn't know Sakura had any interest in poisons and the next surprise he gets is going to give him a heart attack.

And then Sakura's throwing a kunai and Orochimaru has obviously caught it and then Kakashi hears Orochimaru sniff the knife.

"Interesting. Where were you aiming for?"

Sakura is a very good girl who doesn't answer as she pulls out- Hmmm those look like experimental tags. Well. Kakashi's sure the situation could be worse, but he's not sure Sakura needs to tempt fate like that. But sure, why not, experimental sealing tags.

Kakashi throws himself at Orochimaru again, summon two of his dogs as he goes. He pulls up his forehead protector to reveal Obito's Sharingan and starts his internal timer of twenty minutes before he runs out of chakra if he doesn't use any chakra intense jutsu. Of course, he's a ninjutsu specialist fighting against the ninjutsu specialist, so that's not an area he's going to win at. Orochimaru has slowed down over the years, but is still stronger and slightly faster than Kakashi is, sometimes moving fast enough his own eye can hardly follow the motion. Taijutsu is still a better option than ninjutsu though.

Even an implanted Sharingan like his helps with genjutsu, so that might be his best area, but he's a ninjutsu specialist first, a tracking specialist second, and an assassination specialist third. He can perform genjutsu, but no on a kage's level - and that's what Orochimaru is - kage level without a doubt.

Kakashi starts casting genjutsu, trying to layer them and using an excessive amount of chakra to balance his lack of control and to make them ever so slightly harder to break out of. Still, from the twitch of irritation on his face, he's noticed. Genjutsu is always strongest when the victim is unaware, but that wasn't likely to happen here.

Bull and Urushi go for Sakura and Sasuke respectively, going to get his genin out of the way without Kakashi having to say anything.

"Oh no, Kakashi, I'm not here for you," Orochimaru purrs and the fear solidifies in Kakashi's stomach. It's not hard to guess that it's Sasuke who has his attention, with Orochimaru's desire to learn all ninjutsu. Still, he'd thought Orochimaru had found the chakra drain to be too costly, else he could have stolen one during his years in Konoha. Perhaps he found a solution, or he doesn't care anymore.

Still. Kakashi will protect Sasuke with his life.

(Except, it's not like his life is enough, now is it.)

The fight is short and fast, and brutal. Kakashi comes in fast and low moving to take out Orochimaru's knee only for Orochimaru to spin into a kick that nearly catches him in the stomach. Kakashi catches Orochimaru's leg, but he can feel a finger in his hand break as he stops it from hitting him at full strength. Kakashi uses his grip to land an elbow on Orochimaru's thigh, trying to break his leg.

He sees the hand moving towards his face - with Obito's eye he can see it in slow motion - but his trajectory is already set even as he moves to duck he knows it's too late.

His head snaps to the side and his vision blurs. He stumbles then powers up another chidori - cutting his remaining time conscious by another five minutes but as his hand bears through Orochimaru's thigh. Orochimaru's hiss of pain is eerie in how snake-like it sounds, but Kakashi can barely hear it through the pain and dizziness in his head.

He feels himself it the ground, or maybe it's not the ground because then he hits something else. He blinks and there's blood blurring his vision.

He blinks and everything is in a different place.

He blinks and watches Sakura coughs up blood and Kakashi knows that's a problem but-

He blinks and the vision from Obito's eye is still so clear. A vague thought about his forehead protector drifts across and he manages to pull it down.

He blinks, and Sasuke is clutching his shoulder. Sasuke looks like he's in pain.

Kakashi blinks and Naruto is standing over him.

He blinks and there's a light shining in his eyes.

He blinks and-

The smell of Konoha's hospital is so familiar, yet so unwelcome. It lingers, burning his nose as Kakashi rises back to something resembling consciousness. The whine of the lights and the nearly imperceptible flickering is recognisable even with his eyes closed. The window is open - he can hear the curtain fluttering ever so slightly from the breeze. It must be mid-day - a market day or something like that, given how loud it is outside. Shouting, talking, dogs barking, carts rolling on squeaky wooden wheels.

He can feel the hospital facemask over his nose, its sterile smell and imperfect fit.

Kakashi blinks. The overly bright white room is blurry for a moment and Kakashi's head throbs. He looks around, Pakkun is laying on the foot of the bed, on the bedside table there's a small vase with some wilted daisies in it. On the wall is ticking, ticking, ticking clock, its hands inching forever on to tell him it's three o'clock in the afternoon.

There are four chairs, one on his left, one at the foot, and two on his right by his bedside table.

"Pakkun," Kakashi hisses. It's time to go crawl home and most likely pass out, but at least it'll mean passing out in dog fur and his own clothes instead of in the hospital, which, again, eww.

"Kakashi," Pakkun says slowly, voice strange as his chakra fluctuates from waking. Pakkun stands slowly and walks up Kakashi's chest. "I'm glad you're okay," Pakkun says, licking Kakashi's forehead and visible eye. "The kids were worried."

Kakashi looks around the empty room.

"Is that so?" He tries to sound amused even though the idea of his genin caring terrifies him.

"I kicked them out. They're at the chunin exams finals," Pakkun says, walking a circle on Kakashi's stomach before laying back down.

"The finals?" Kakashi was unconscious for over a week? He knew he was in bad shape at the end of the fight, but not that bad.

"The kids dragged you home. They didn't know where the nearby watchtowers were, or what the passcodes were." Pakkun says, not looking at Kakashi as he speaks. Kakashi swallows back some mix of emotions he doesn't understand enough to name. At least some guilt, knowing him. "All three were injured, but you were in the worst shape by a lot. Your brain was bleeding. You almost died."

Well, it's not like it was the first time, Kakashi thinks, looking for water. There isn't a jug on the bedside time like usual and he gives up, unwilling to call a nurse.

"Sasuke was also in bad shape - Sakura carried him most of the way back - Orochimaru gave him the cursed seal. The Hokage called Jiraiya in, so it's been partly sealed.."

"Partly sealed?"

"It's changed from Anko's seal so it'll take a while to make a new complete suppression seal. Orochimaru messed with the Kyuubi seal as well, but Jiraiya was able to fix that."

"Mm," Kakashi pushes Pakkun off him so he can sit and prepare to escape.

"No, Kakashi," Pakkun says, sitting on the ground as if he hadn't just tumbled off the bed. "Stay."

Kakashi doesn't bother to answer, instead breathing steadily through the growing migraine that was turning the open window into a form of torture. He hears Pakkun's feet against the floor, then he hears the sound of the nurse call button being pressed.

Betrayal, betrayal from the ones he trusts most.

"I promised I wouldn't let you leave until the kids could see you were awake and okay," is all Pakkun manages before a menace of a nurse enters already holding a syringe at the ready.

"Alright Hatake, we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way," she says. Kakashi blinks a couple of times. He doesn't know her name, but he recognises her. She's been a medic at the hospital since Kakashi was a pre-genin. She's one of the few medics that he rarely manages to escape from.

He slumps.

"Very good," she says, setting the syringe down and helping him lay back down. Kakashi's eyes flutter closed of their own accord. "Have some water and let me give you a quick check then you can go back to sleep." She manhandles him with one hand while scanning him with the other. A gentle, and likely incidental, reminder that medics are all shinobi - not all particularly strong shinobi, but with good chakra control comes the ability to supplement strength.

Fighting medics really can be the worst.

He grimaces as he reaches up to pull down his mask, sipping at the water she's holding to his mouth. She doesn't comment, and he's thankful. When she lowers him back down he starts to consciously check his chakra flow, feeling where the channels are a bit swollen around the ribs he broke. There's a lot of swollen chakra channels in his head. Still, it all runs smoothly, nothing ruptured by poor medical care or some other disaster. He can feel as the medic's chakra pulses through him, the fuzzy feeling as it passes through his own chakra.

"You're looking good considering the shape you were in just a couple of days ago." He listens, sleep creeping in as she walks to the door. "You should thank your genin - she kept you alive long enough to reach real medics."

Then Kakashi's gone again, deep into the depths of sleep.

(Unfortunately, this being sleep instead of unconsciousness, he dreams, but he's practised at waking up and immediately falling back asleep after nightmares.)

He rises again the surface quickly, feeling Pakkun's agitated chakra. As he wakes he hears Pakkun barking and then he's off the bed on his feet and reaching for kunai that aren't there before his eyes open.

"What's the situation?" Kakashi demands, hearing the sound of destruction and feeling a nearby chakra pulse like someone is using ninjutsu.

"Don't know - attack," Pakkun says, leaning briefly against Kakashi's leg so he knows where Pakkun is even as his vision darkens from standing too quickly. "The hospital is extra vulnerable with everyone at the chunin exams though."

Kakashi holds back curses. The chunin exams, where all his genin are. He takes another step towards the door and feels as his entire body protests. Luckily, he remembers Sakura mentioning Yamato would be there, he would look after them. They would have to be fine, there was no way he could make it to the stadium right now.

"Right, who's likely to be the enemy?"

"Sand and Ame are the only international competitors," Pakkun says, "the kids didn't notice, but there have been more ANBU patrols than normal though."

Kakashi sighs. Why can it never be easy?

"Fine, attack anyone who attacks us." It's not his favourite method of defence by any means, but it'll have to do. "Can you go by room and rouse anyone who can fight?"

"You got it," Pakkun says, jumping up against Kakashi's leg and licking his hand once. "Be safe."

"You too," Kakashi manages, pulling the hospital floor plan to mind. He knew escaping the hospital so often would be useful.

The patient's intake items are on the third floor, in the north wing, so that's where most of the weapons probably are. Still, there are going to be more around - this is a hospital that mainly serves shinobi, after all.

There's absolutely no one in the hallway which is worrying as much as it is eerie. Usually, the halls are full of medics and cleaners and visitors and patients moving from place to place. Although, usually Kakashi is in the short term ward for chakra exhaustion. He checks the signs on the door. He's in the high-risk ward.

(His death feels both ever-present and impossible, but it still feels strange to be reminded that he nearly never woke up.)

Pakkun starts going into patient rooms while Kakashi breaks into closets and lockers until he finds a thigh pouch and a chest plate. He switches his ultra breezy hospital gown for the more complicated (and thus less convenient for the medics) but more covering kimono-style gown since he'd fight with everything exposed if he had to, and only if he had to. The chest plate goes over that and he tears the left sleeve off his gown to reveal his ANBU tattoo since his forehead protector is still with his clothes and weapons a floor and a wing away.

Then he takes his first step out of the high-risk ward and understands why it was empty. He'd forgotten about the sound suppression seals.

The hallway intersection between wards is a battle zone.

It's easy enough to tell the enemy - Sand and Sound, but everyone is moving fast enough it's hard to tell a friend from an enemy and Kakashi's head is already starting to ache again so he plants himself in front of the high-risk ward entrance and waits for enemies to come to him.

They oblige, not bothering to look past the hospital gown to see who they're attacking, Kakashi assumes. It's not like he's a particularly unknown figure in the shinobi world, but perhaps they don't recognise him in an eye patch and medical mask. (Maybe they're low-level cannon fodder that have never had a bingo book to memorise.)

The kunai in the pouch are the wrong size for him, but he's managed with worse. He likely will manage with worse before the day's out. The shinobi that come for him are mid-genin to high-chunin exclusively, and even when there's a rare team-up, it takes minimal work to dispatch them. At some point, Pakkun returns carrying supplies,

"I closed and locked the windows. I left some weapons in each room and told the ones who were awake what's happening. No one was mobile though."

A pile of bodies grows before him on the floor and all Kakashi can think is that Konoha medics need more combat training. They aren't losing, by any means, but they seem to be getting by on dodging and some are starting to run out of stamina.

Reluctantly, he throws one of his few kunai at a Sand shinobi aiming for one of the younger-looking medic's backs. He'll make sure to schedule a couple of ANBU style training sessions to whip them back into shape.

(What do mean the hospital isn't Kakashi's responsibility? Didn't you just see him save that medic's life? Of course, their wellbeing is now solely his responsibility.)

When the room is free of enemies, the floor is sticky with blood and there are bodies - mostly but not exclusively the enemies - strewn on the floor. But there's no time to rest.

"Who knows what's going on?" Kakashi barks, all sentimentality locked up where it doesn't consciously influence him. Where it doesn't slow him down.

"Attack by Sand and Sound." A medic with blood dripping down their forehead returns, "hospital got a big wave, they seem to be looking for easy targets and bloodlines. The schools were probably targeted too."

"Handle here first," Kakashi commands, crouching to collect weapons from bodies. "Grab weapons, have some water or some soldier pills. We need to clear the hospital. If you aren't well enough to continue fighting you'll stay here with two other fighters to keep this area clear."

The medics are good listeners. Better than chunin usually are from Kakashi's experience, though he supposes medics are in life-and-death situations as often as ANBU are, even if it's not their life-and-death on the line. They split into two parts, those able to fight and those not. From the fighting team, Kakashi points out an Inuzuka and a Hyuuga to stay behind.

"Hyuuga - don't waste chakra, only turn on the Byakugan when you have to. Inuzuka - send your partner to patrol the hallways in case shinobi are coming through the hallways. All of you, patch yourselves up and be prepared to receive patients." At that, the room starts to buzz again but Kakashi leaves them to it, turning to the six fighting medics left. "Follow me, stay close and guard my back."

He bites his thumb and summons the whole pack. He's almost out of chakra from that, since healing drains chakra, but it's worth it for the strength they provide both literally and emotionally. Kakashi's head throbs and he pretends his eyes don't feel like they're too big for his skull.

"Attack by Sound and Suna. Hospital under attack," Kakashi says, already turning towards the hospital entrance. Konoha is his and Kakashi will only be one of many to defend it to his last breath.

Chapter 77: Inner-Outer - Sakura

Chapter Text

Sakura has fought at Asano's side before, but only in the academy, only as part of training or for fun. To fight by her side in truth, it is both better than she imagined and worse than she expected.

To see Asano's face go cold, to barely flicker as she stabs a kunai into a sand-nin's eye turns Sakura stomach. To hear Asano say,

"Ew, gross," to the brain on her hand, and to hear a jonin laugh, it makes everything feel dirty. It makes Sakura feel unpleasantly strange. Distant and stuck at the same time. She can feel Inner's presence in her mind, watching.

There's a rush that comes with protecting Asano's back. To glance around her and see Sasuke, Naruto, and Asano at her side. There is nothing like that. Sakura loves Kakashi, she thinks, but she doesn't like him very much. She's not even sure she likes Naruto and Sasuke most days. Asano, she never has to doubt.

She sees Asano in danger, sees the weapons flying around and the ground moving under the enemy's ninjutsu and Sakura feels like maybe she could kill someone too. She hasn't had to yet. Jonin and chunin come and save the four of them from shinobi too strong for them. The four of them are far from the only shinobi fighting, but from the look of it, they might be the only genin.

Sakura and Sasuke had both broken the genjutsu almost instantly, Asano following before Sakura could wake her up. Asano's uncle woke Naruto. He looked over the three of them nervously before glancing at the Hokage's box where something was happening.

"What do we do?" Asano asks as if the answer isn't obvious. And, after a moment, Sakura supposes it isn't. They need to fight, of course, they need to survive, obviously. But do they stand and fight here, do they leave the stadium, do they wake the civilians who might panic?

"Stay with me, no matter what happens," Yohei says, and Asano nods firmly. Sakura follows Asano's lead and Naruto follows a second later. Sasuke hesitates. "I am your superior officer giving you an official command," Yohei says, suddenly looking a lot less friendly than he had a minute ago. Sasuke nods but Sakura sees the ugly look in his eyes and knows Sasuke would break his word with little hesitation.

That's when the wave of attacks breaks through the jonin already fighting. Sakura kicks a Sound-nin in the back when a scream echoes through the stadium. It's a boy with red hair and black marks around his eyes - Gaara - she recalls. He was fighting Asano's brother.

"Hideo," Asano hisses jumping towards the edge of the stands. The stadiums sand swirls around Gaara, some gathers around his arm forming a monstrously large one covered in black designs. Hideo is on the other side of the stadium, looking nervously around the stadium before pausing and putting his hands together.

Thick branches burst from the ground and Sakura is reminded of Hideo's bloodline limit for the first time in years. No ever told Sakura it was a secret, but it had been strongly implied, she'd felt. Hideo's trees grow towards Gaara with impressive speed, but Sakura can already see the way they seem weaker the farther they grow. Gaara's monstrous arm smashes the wood reaching towards him but the sand storm grows thicker and Gaara yells again, and Sakura thinks it might sound afraid.

The sand around Gaara gathers faster and faster, forming a second arm and a leg, pushing Gaara into the air as the sand engulfs him. Sakura's hear of bloodline abilities that are dangerous enough to take control of the person's mind and body, but that doesn't feel like the explanation here. Not from the rising pressure in the air and the way the jonin around her are watching Gaara out of the corner of their eye with something she think might be fear in their eyes.

Hideo jumps back, leaping up the stadium wall and Sakura gets distracted by a Sand shinobi rising off the ground where she thought they'd been dead.

She sees Yohei out of the corner of her eye, moving and killing faster than Sakura can easily track. She hears Sasuke grunt and Naruto yells something. Asano is largely silent. She'd put on her face mask that was usually reserved for mission for the tournament because of how packed the stadium was and how many foreigners would be there. Now Sakura wonders if Asano feels differently when she wears the mask. If it's easier to kill.

Because Sakura cuts the Sand shinobi's throat and then vomits onto the back of a row of seats - hot blood dripping over her hands like a child playing with paint. Her mouth burns with the acid and some part of her brain says she deserves the pain.

("We don't," Inner says, quieter than usual. "We have to protect Asano. Don't we? We always knew we'd have to kill.") Sakura doesn't respond, she rarely responds to Inner, but now she doesn't know what to say. She knew she'd have to kill but it still hadn't felt real? Was Asano's life worth killing for? She'd thought it was… but who was she to make that sort of decision?

("Focus on protecting Asano, on protecting our team and staying alive, for now." Inner says, her patience for Sakura's moral dilemma fading even as she chokes back bile.)

Sakura doesn't know if she can.

Then Asano is on the ground. Asano is on the ground and there's blood on her clothes and Sakura doesn't know who the blood belongs to.

Sakura's mind goes blank.

When she tries to remember what happened later it will be largely near-photographic images of singular moments, and Inner's words being the only thing she hears.

("Aim for his eye." Inner's voice says, over the image of a kunai covered in an off white fluid Sakura knows is a burst eyeball.)

("Gut him," Inner says, and Sakura can see a dead body belonging to a Sound shinobi no more than a couple of years older than her, his eyes glazed and his lips covered in blood.)

("Check Asano," Inner says, and this image is blurry, Inner's voice is too loud. Sakura's hands are bloody, grabbing at Asano's shirt.)

And then there's a moment of darkness. And then Sakura isn't seeing the world directly.

"Oh this is weird," Sakura hears her own voice say, out loud, but she didn't say it.

"What happened?" She says looking around the strange room. She can feel her limbs but they feel distant. She can see the world around her, but only when she focuses.

"I think we switched," a voice that sounds like Sakura's says. After a moment, Sakura realises who said it. Inner. Inner Sakura. Sakura looks at the smooth skin of Asano's stomach through the strange filter of wherever she is.

Sakura feels the overwhelmingly distant feeling start to fade and she falls to the ground.

"It's okay," Inner says, and Sakura realises Inner isn't speaking aloud. These are her thoughts. Now it's Sakura's thoughts that are private, and what she says aloud can only be heard by Inner. "I'll take care of this. You," Inner pauses, "rest, check out my space. I think it's pretty cool. It can take some practice, but you can get anything you need."

Sakura blinks in shock and remembers Inner falling onto sofas and pulling magazines out of thin air. She can't look away from the real world, from Inner finding a bloody gash on Asano's head, the blood pooling on the ground.

"Sakura, Naruto, are you both in good shape?" Yohei asks, and Inner freezes. Sakura tries not to panic when Inner slowly, too slowly in the current circumstances, turns to Yohei.

"I'm… good," Inner says, out loud, in Sakura's voice. Her vocalisation… sounds different from Sakura's, a little. Not a lot though, and Yohei doesn't seem to notice, though Naruto sends her a confused look.

"I'm not injured, Asano's uncle!" Naruto says, giving a thumbs up even though his skin is unusually pale. Sakura thinks he might've thrown up too.

"Sasuke, you and Asano need to find somewhere safe. I need to go handle Gaara- No." Yohei stops and runs his hands through his hair. "You are all staying with me. Sasuke, can you carry Asano?"

"Yeah," Sasuke crosses his arms and looks away, "I'm totally fine, I can fight."

"With the cursed seal you absolutely cannot run out of chakra," Yohei says, giving him a look Sakura can't decipher. "You shouldn't fight using chakra at all, and probably shouldn't fight unless absolutely necessary."

"I'm fine," Sasuke repeats, shoulders tense.

"Now's not the time," Inner says, glances at Gaara who is currently massive and leaping towards the forest. "Sasuke, carry Asano, don't let her get hurt or I'll gut you."

Sakura watches from their headspace as Sasuke sends her a look that seems almost scared. Almost because Sakura can't believe that Sasuke would ever genuinely be scared of her. That doesn't make sense.

"Follow closely," Yohei commands, jumping from the edge of the seats down into the stadium, stopping and watching them.

"I can use a shadow clone," Naruto offers to Sasuke, who still looks upset.

"Don't," Inner commands. "Shadow clones are too delicate. If one popped while running, Asano could die if her skull is cracked."

"It was okay for Kakashi-sensei though?" Naruto says, frowning.

"We weren't actively being attacked!" Inner yells, scooping Asano into her arms and following Yohei into the stadium arena.

"Sorry, sorry!" Naruto's voice comes distant from the seating area as he slides down the wall. Sasuke uses the body replacement technique and appears in a puff of smoke.

"Don't waste chakra, Uchiha," Yohei says, voice calm but unwavering. Sasuke says nothing, only sniffing and looking away dismissively.

"If Sasuke causes trouble now because he feels left out, I'm never going to let him live it down," Sakura says, and she feels Inner's amusement even if she doesn't respond. A wave of exhaustion sweeps through Sakura, and she wonders if Inner feels it too.

The air is loud with yells and distant explosions and Sakura pulls away. She pulls away and the sounds become distant, the view of the world becomes smaller. She just wants a blanket, and a cup of tea, and a good cry on Asano's shoulder. But Asano's unconscious and Kakashi-sensei's unconscious and they're being attacked and Sasuke's acting weird and Naruto's acting weird. And she's so tired.

Eyes glazed and feeling like her body's floating, Sakura can acknowledge that when she and Inner switched… Something popped. Something broke, and Sakura's not sure she'll ever be able to fix it. The world feels distant she doesn't know if she'll ever want it to be close again.

Chapter 78: It's the EYE OF THE TIGER - Naruto

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Naruto follows Asano's uncle, trying to not wrinkle his nose at the smell of blood, smoke, and fear that's started to saturate the air. Sakura is following just ahead, Asano clutched carefully in her arms. When Asano went down, the fear in Naruto flushed through him, down to his core. Down the Kyuubi that had so recently burned its way through Naruto's body.

He knew the Kyuubi was dangerous, had talked about it a bit with Old Man Hokage. Then they'd been attacked by Orochimaru, and once Naruto had come back to himself, he'd seen the fear in Sasuke and Sakura's eyes. He had seen the damage the Kyuubi had done. He didn't regret the Kyuubi coming out during the fight, Kakashi-sensei came so close to death already. But he never wanted to see that fear in his friends' eyes again, so he wouldn't try to use the Kyuubi's powers again unless he had to - unless his friends' lives were at risk.

(He couldn't bear to return to being alone. He hadn't fully realised how awful it was, to be alone, until he wasn't anymore.)

Sasuke smells bad - has smelled bad since Orochimaru's attack. Sasuke always smells angry, or full of grief, or tired in the same way Kakashi-sensei and Asano sometimes do. Tired like dust, like laying down and sleeping for a century, tired in a terribly sick way. But Sasuke usually smelled like other things too. Sasuke usually smelled of tomatoes and frustration, excitement and tired satisfaction, pride and sweat. Now Sasuke reeked of anger, of grief, of a bitter sort of rage that Naruto couldn't place. Sasuke smelled scared.

Naruto didn't know what to do.

He had nudged Sasuke, tried to remind Sasuke he wasn't alone, since that's the idea that scared Naruto most. Sasuke yelled at Naruto that Naruto had always been alone, and that was different. Sasuke had yelled that he'd had a family and Naruto would never understand what it was like to lose that because Naruto had never been part of a family.

Now Naruto wished he'd said 'you guys are my family!' But he hadn't thought of it at the time, too hurt by Sasuke's words.

Sakura follows Asano's Uncle into the forest where the silhouette of the monster that had consumed Gaara loomed.

Naruto thought- well. He didn't know, but he thought, maybe, that Gaara was a human container like he was. He didn't like that idea. Gaara didn't smell human. Gaara smelled like blood and sand and maybe something Naruto would describe as exhaustion or madness. It wasn't like scents came with descriptions outside of Kakashi's training packs. Either way, it burned his nose and made his eyes water.

Sasuke runs by his side, watching Sakura intently, watching Asano in her arms. His Sharingan was activated, which Naruto suspected it probably shouldn't be, since it used chakra, but he didn't know what to do to fix it. Sasuke wouldn't turn it off just because Naruto told him to - Sasuke'd probably keep it on longer to spite him. He didn't know what to do to fix Kakashi-sensei, or Asano after her bad mission, or Sasuke, or the way Sakura would go silent but her face would move like she was responding to someone.

He didn't know how to fix anyone, or anything and the desperation was starting to tear at him, a little.

"Uncle!" Asano's brother yells. He's got blood dripped down one side of his face from his hairline. One of his arms is hanging limply in a way Naruto recognises from sparring in the academy. His face is flushed and shiny with sweat and Naruto can smell his pain.

"Hideo," Asano's Uncle nods, "are you able to keep going? It's not safe for you to return to fighting, but your jutsu could be useful and you… you might be safer here."

"I can keep going," Asano's brother says, nodding confidently, but Naruto can smell a tart scent that makes him doubt Asano's brother's words.

"We have to stop the One Tail from attacking Konoha," Asano's Uncle says.

"The One Tail?" Sasuke says, staring at the silhouette.

"Beasts made of chakra - the Kyuubi is the most powerful - the nine-tailed fox demon. The one tail is the weakest, but still incredibly powerful. The wood release jutsu is naturally strong against tailed beasts, but it's not perfect."

"What's the plan?" Sakura says, and something about her face, her posture, seems strange, but this whole situation is strange and Naruto is just glad she's dealing with Asano's unconsciousness as well as she is.

"Hideo and I will be trying to subdue the One Tail. You two, Naruto, Sakura, will defend us and keep any enemy shinobi away from us - we'll be focusing on the One Tail and will be unable to defend ourselves."

"Asano!" Sakura says, and it feels loud against the strange distant noise of fighting and the One Tail's yelling. Naruto looks over and sees Asano slowly blink.

"My head hurts," she croaks, her words slurred but understandable.

"You were knocked unconscious," her uncle says, "once the fighting settles you need to go to the hospital immediately. What's the last thing you remember?"

"Hideo… Hideo was fighting Gaara?"

"We're being attacked," Sasuke says sharply, "Sand and Sound are attacking us. Gaara…" Sasuke trails off, confused, looking at Asano's Uncle.

"Gaara was the human container for the One-Tailed Beast and has released it. Hideo and I will work to subdue him. You stay still, Asano. The other three will protect you, and Hideo and I."

"Oh. Okay," Asano says, her eyes seem a bit glazed and Naruto is reminded that not everyone heals as quickly and easily he does. Asano in particular gets sick a lot, so she might heal really slowly. It's a strange thought, that Asano is… weak in this particular way.

Asano's Uncle looks around,

"This is far enough into the forest that I wouldn't expect many enemy shinobi to come this way, and getting close to a tailed beast is incredibly dangerous. Sasuke, Asano, you two stay here. Asano, summon your strongest bear." Asano nods and Sakura lowers her to the ground. Naruto watches as she bites her thumb and runs through a series of hand signs, incredibly slowly compared to Asano's usual speed. She slams her hands into the ground and a burst of smoke rises.

Asano turns and vomits, groaning pitifully.

The smoke clears and a massive bear is standing before her.

"Hello," Naruto says, waving. Pakkun is Kakashi's nin-dog and he's kinda like a grumpy old man. This is Asano's summon, so hopefully, they can be friends too.

"Asano, let your bear summon protect you two. Do not look for trouble."

"You got it," Asano groans, giving her Uncle a thumbs up from where's she's still slumped over.

"Stay safe, Sis," Asano's brother says.

"You're the one attacking the giant racoon-dog made of sand," Asano says. She smiles at her brother and Naruto isn't jealous. He isn't. Asano's his friend, and he's happy that she has a family that loves her and looks out for her. (He just hopes that one day he can have the same, it's not jealousy, it's... hope. Excitement for his future. When he's Hokage, he'll have a family that loves him and he'll be able to go to any shop he wants.)

"Alright," Asano Uncle says, looking towards the towering figure of the One-Tailed Beast. "Let's go." Asano's Uncle and Brother both run towards Gaara. Naruto follows with Sakura at his side.

A shinobi wearing a Suna headband bursts from the trees and Naruto can barely follow as Asano's Uncle knees him in the stomach and cuts his throat. A couple of seconds later, Naruto hears a bark, followed by Kiba and Akamaru jumping down from a tree branch.

"Thanks, dude," Kiba says, looking between the four of them.

"Hey Kiba!" Naruto looks at Asano's Uncle who is already turning back towards the One-Tailed Beast. "This is Asano's brother and Uncle, they're gonna fight the-" he waves towards the One-Tailed Beast. "Sakura and I are on defence. Are you good to join us? Where's your team?"

"Nice to meet you," Kiba says nodding towards the other Sakurai. "We're all split up. I got herded away from Shino. I'll join you," they run in sync. Naruto tries not to feel creeped out by Sakura's ultra-intense gaze. "Being a genin sucks."

There's a clearing around the One-Tailed Beast, covered in wood chips. There are dead bodies on the ground wearing Konoha vests.

"You three stay back," Asano's uncle snaps, continuing to run forward with Asano's brother following like a duckling. A very powerful duckling if his weird wiggly wood jutsu and Asano's lack of concern over his health was any indication.

"Dog-Boy, has your team done any defence missions?" Sakura says, and that niggling sensation that something was wrong with her would not subside. Naruto took a discrete sniff. Sakura's scent was a bit muted, yet weirdly sharp, some element that made it Sakura had a strange tang that Naruto couldn't interpret. Kiba too was giving Sakura a weird look.

"Yeah, one."

"Asano said that your sister sent her nin-dogs to scout, to give advance warning in case of attack. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, but this isn't a good time for it. Akamaru's a lot smaller than Haimaru yet, he's not ready to fight independently yet."

"That's fine." Sakura turns to Naruto.

"Oh," Naruto perks up, "I can scout with my clones!"

"Yes you can," Sakura says, not even pretending to not sound condescending. "Do it." Naruto generously ignores Sakura's tone but promises himself he'll stick her head in some mud when this is over.

"Got it!" Clones spread around him, a good number, but a few less than he'd been aiming for. Maybe Asano had a point about chakra control, but it hadn't been a problem yet - if his control wasn't good enough then he'd just shove excess chakra at it.

One of the clones offers a hand to Akamaru so he knows its scent.

"Your clones smell weird," Kiba says, saying something to Akamaru with his body language.

"Yeah, a bit," Naruto agrees. They smell like him, kind of.

"Send them all around us in the forest. We don't want to be ambushed, especially if they come from the direction of the One-Tail."

"You heard her," Naruto says to the clones who scatter.

The three of them are still for a minute as the clones disappear into the forest.

"Can we help?" Kiba gestures to where Asano's Uncle and Brother are fighting the One-Tail. Asano's Uncle has captured one of the One-Tailed Beast's hands, but it looks like the other hand had broken out of Asano's brother's wood jutsu.

"I don't think so," Sakura says, "They've trained together a lot, so we be at high risk of just getting in the way. Not unless something goes wrong for them."

A clone pops, and Naruto feels as its memories play out.

"Doesn't matter - enemies incoming," Naruto says, pointing into the forest between them and the Sequoia District. "I think they're Sand Shinobi. They smell very dry - Sound shinobi smell more… damp."

"A bit mouldy, a bit medical," Kiba agrees.

"Do you know how many?" Sakura asks, looking between the fight between the One-Tailed Beast and the forest where Kiba's looking.

"Two to four… I'd guess?" It hurts to admit he doesn't know, but even if his years of pranking practice has proven invaluable, he's better at identifying the specific shinobi who are usually sent after him, not random enemy shinobi. "It could be one strong jonin or five genin, I'm not sure."

"Great," Sakura sighs. Naruto feels like his eyes are glued on the scene of Asano's Uncle standing against the massive figure of the One-Tailed Beast. Massive wooden beams, darting forward almost like tentacles.

"You two…" Naruto starts slowly, "you two take care of the Sand Shinobi." Asano's Uncle said the Nine-Tailed Beast was stronger than the One-Tailed Beast, so. If they needed help… Naruto should be able to help. He's just not sure if he'll be able to control himself enough to actually protect anyone. (Visions of the scarred ground, of the broken tree, of Sasuke's terrified look before passing out dance before his eyes.) "I'll help Asano's uncle and brother. If they need it."

Sakura gives him a confused, almost sceptical look, but Naruto's barely paying attention. She pauses then nods, something in her gaze is calculating as she looks away. (A familiar, and slightly worrying sign, by Naruto's estimation.)

"No suicide jutsu or anything, okay man?" Kiba says, clapping him on the shoulder. "We'll see you before this is all over."

"Right," Naruto says, aware even as he says it that his words are unconvincing.

There's a strange disconnected feeling as Kiba and Sakura run towards the incoming enemies and Naruto watches a battlefield he's not sure he'll survive if he has to join. He used to feel invincible. It was Asano's mission going bad that reminded him that he wasn't. It was Kakashi, unconscious and slowly dying in his arms that made that all the more clear. He wasn't invincible - no one was. But Naruto was a lot more durable than other people. He could take damage and shake it off, stand up and try again.

The One-Tail breaks the confines around his hand, but it clearly has a cost. Then its tail sweeps towards Asano's brother, and there's a puff of smoke and Asano's uncle takes the hit.

"UNCLE!" Naruto hears Asano's brother screams. The pair of them blur as Asano's Uncle runs back, pulling them a bit further out of range. When they stop, Naruto can tell that Asano's Uncle is clutching his stomach. Watches as Asano's brother tries to help and Asano's Uncle sends him closer to Naruto.

Naruto swallows the bitter taste in his mouth. It's probably time to help.

He doesn't want to scare Asano's brother and uncle, but better scared than dead. Even if they convince Asano to stop being his friend... It would be worth it to save Asano the pain of losing more of her family.

He strains, trying to reach for the Kyuubi inside him. He doesn't know how he reached it last time. He had been so angry about Orochimaru attacking them, so scared for Kakashi-sensei. (He had been so angry at himself, for being useless.) And then he'd been inside a massive tunnel, his feet wet, bars of a prison rising high before him.

He tries to feel as angry and hopeless as he had before. He tries to feel his chakra. He calls for Kyuubi inside his mind.

He feels no response. There's no hidden door or easy access, but he keeps pushing around, feeling for that rage and chakra and hatred.

He moves towards Asano's brother. Maybe he can help even without the Kyuubi. (Maybe.)

"Hey," Asano's brother says once he's close. Asano's brother's voice is rough. One of his arms is so bloody Naruto can't see flesh under it, and from the strange warped shape of it, he's not sure there's any skin left under all the blood. He'd thought Asano's uncle had blocked the entire attack, but maybe not - or maybe Naruto missed the attack that caused it.

"What's the plan?" Naruto says, trying to smile as the thick scent of blood and fear and pain lay thick on the back of his throat.

"Get out of here," Asano's brother says, "Uncle will do his best, but he's not in his best shape right now. Wait for back up."

Naruto knows better than to wait for back up. It never comes soon enough. (Back up didn't save Asano from torture, or Kakashi-sensei from Orochimaru. He wouldn't trust Asano's family to backup.)

He won't let despair defeat him. He never has, he never will.

Instead, he creates a mass of shadow clones, pushing to create even more than he does normally. A wave of orange spreads behind the smoke of their creation.

"Group up in teams of eight," Naruto says, "plan in a group and act when you're ready. Do not all go as one. Try to be creative - think Asano's murder games!"

"Asano's murder games?" Asano's brother echoes before bursting into a coughing fit that leaves him breathless and crying, though it doesn't look like he coughed up any blood, so that's good at least. Naruto and the clones don't respond, teaming up, including Original-Naruto.

"We don't know any jutsu!" One of the clones in Original-Naruto's team cries.

"Well, we know the academy jutsu, sexy jutsu, and shadow clones," one of the other clones says.

"And we have our weapons, which we can each use once!" Another clone says with a determined nod.

"We can make more clones and use them as weapons, right?" Another clone says.

"I think maybe only the Boss can do that," a clone says. The previous clone makes the seal and two other clones appear.

"We can," he says, "but I feel uhh... Less solid now."

"So there's probably a limit of some sort," a clone says, nodding thoughtfully.

"What are the One-Tailed Beasts strengths and weaknesses?" One of the clones says, taking over Asano's position in the murder game.

"It's really big; I think it can reform to some level; it's made of chakra, so it probably has lots of chakra; even once we beat the One Tail, we might still have to fight Gaara," one of the clones ticks of fingers as he speaks.

"Gaara already fought with Asano's brother, and the One Tail has already fought with Asano's uncle, so it might be tired; we're in a forest, not a desert so there's not a lot of sand if it runs out?" The clone doing weaknesses look uncertain and they all share that look, they're pretty sure Gaara didn't have enough sand in his gourd to make the whole sand beast they were facing now. "Sand can melt?"

At that, the clones all share interested looks. Just because the One-Tailed Beast could control sand didn't mean it could control glass, so fire might be useful. Fire was fun - but not an area Naruto had a ton of experience with since it was so dangerous. It was definitely an idea worth considering though.

"Genjutsu?" One of the clones says, "or maybe a massive sexy jutsu to look like uh... A girl raccoon-dog?" One of the other clones pulls out a notebook and makes a note.

"We could go to Asano and get her explosion seal tags - she's definitely got some with her." Another note added to the notebook.

"We could make a giant bonfire and use a genjutsu to trick it into sitting in until it melted?"

"Hold on, I think the idea of a massive clone could have some use," one of the clones interjects. "Can we make a massive clone? We can use sexy jutsu to be uhh... Not Naruto shaped, so we should be able to make ourselves giant with it."

"I feel like this is something that was covered in the academy," one of the clones groans and the others wince.

"It might use a lot of chakra, but," one of the clones shrugs to say 'we have a lot of chakra'.

"We shouldn't be wasteful with the chakra we have - if we run out, we might pull more on the Kyuubi," a clone says, causing all of them to freeze.

"Do you think it would?"

"I don't know," Original-Naruto says, trying to remember the fight with Orochimaru.

"It's probably not a good idea to test it now," one of the clones says with a sigh of disappointment. "If it doesn't work, we'll just be chakra-exhausted and useless."

"Maybe instead of a big fire, we make a normal fire, but then heat up the kunai…" The clone holding the notepad says, wincing as he says it.

A thud causes them to glance at a different group of clones knocking down a tree, the clones on it looking like a swarm of ants.

"Okay, one of us should go to Asano and her get explosion tags - do we want any more supplies from Asano or Sasuke?" Original-Naruto says, puts his hands on his hips, trying not to feel impatient. Of course, it would be best if he can deal with the One-Tailed Beast without using the Kyuubi's power, but he's now sure how he can. Theoretically, if he had a fire or lightning jutsu, then he'd use those. But he doesn't know any fire or lightning jutsu. Maybe if he had a cool summon like Asano, but even Asano's massive bear summon was small compared to the One-Tail.

"Anything they can spare, I guess," one of the clones says.

"Ask Sasuke if we can learn his fireball jutsu in a minute or two?" A clone says, and they all wince at what they imagine Sasuke's reaction would be.

"We can use chakra spikes to climb the Beast, maybe?"

"No, I think the sand would be able to drop or attack us."

"I'm going to go get seals from Asano," Original-Naruto says, "let me know what the plan is when I get back!" He turns and runs at full speed back to Asano and Sasuke. There's a very, very bloody dead body on the ground next to them. Sasuke stands over it. Asano is laying against a tree.

There are the weird, squiggles from Orochimaru's seal on Sasuke's jaw which Naruto is pretty sure is a bad thing. Sasuke is audibly controlling his breathing, which stutters when Sasuke looks up and sees Naruto. For a moment, the inky squiggles on Sasuke's jaw surge and Sasuke's hand jumps to his shoulder as he hisses in pain.

"It's just me!" Naruto says, trying to remember the dumb passcode Sasuke tried to make them memorise when Kakashi-sensei was unconscious. "Something about wind? I don't remember your dumb passcode, sorry." Sasuke rolls his eyes and Naruto smiles.

"Stay focused Sasuke," Asano says, her voice sounds strained. Judging from Asano's position and the new dark spot on the ground that smells like bile, she'd tried to move again and it hadn't gone well.

"Do you guys have any explosive seals? I have a couple, but I'm not really prepared for a fight," Naruto manages thoughts gasping breaths. Asano pulls a handful out of her pouch without a moment's hesitation. Sasuke pulls a few out as well and hands Naruto half of them.

"Do you need anything else?"

"Know any fire or lightning jutsu?" He asks, just in case. Asano shakes her head,

"Sorry, no."

"The fireball jutsu is an Uchiha clan jutsu," Sasuke says stiffly, "and it takes practice to use anyway."

"I figured," Naruto sighs. "This would be way easier if I'd been prepared for a fight."

"Isn't that always the case," Asano agrees with a weak laugh. Then she pauses. "Do you want me to alter the explosion seals? It'll make them… way more unstable, since I'll have to use blood - I don't have sealing ink prepared, obviously. But I could make them explode hotter."

"Yes please, I'm trying to turn sand into glass." Naruto manages, handing them over and watching carefully as Asano cuts her leg, dipping the tip of her pointer finger into the blood and adding two symbols to the paper seals which flash orange once she finishes writing. She moves steadily through the pile, not moving as quickly as Naruto would like, but he tries to be patient.

"Don't use chakra near these until you're ready for them to explode, they also might take up to a minute to explode, so don't depend on the time to be exact." Naruto gives the seals a dubious look, regretting not sending a clone so he wouldn't be permanently disabled if they activated at a bad time.

"Oh!" Asano sticks her hand into her pouch and pulls out a large piece of sealing paper, quickly but carefully scrawling a seal onto the page. Each symbol is larger than usual, but it doesn't look particularly complicated to Naruto. "This will create lightning. I've not tested it, but I got it checked and approved as not likely to put me in the hospital, so it should work on some level."

Naruto takes the large seal and holds it in his other hand since he's not sure it'd be a good idea to get them too close to each other.

"Thank you," he says, grinning at Asano who returns it, even with how sick she looks. Asano's great.

"Sand melts at a high temperature," Sasuke says, slowly through his teeth. "If you can add ash it will lower the melting point.

"Hideo can help you with that I think. I have a fire starting kit too," Asano says, pulling out a scroll and unsealing a pouch which she hands over." Naruto nods.

"Don't die, idiot," Sasuke says, crossing his arms and looking away.

"Don't be dumb, bastard," Naruto says, nudging Sasuke, "and look after Asano." Asano gives a heavy sigh but doesn't otherwise protest.

Then Naruto returns. The clones have each transformed to wear a different colour. There's now a Red-Clone, Yellow-Clone, Green-Clone, Blue-Clone, Purple-Clone, White-Clone, and Black-Clone. With Original-Naruto in Orange, they're each easily identifiable, which has its strengths and weaknesses.

"Asano made the explosion seals hotter, but they might activate if we use any chakra too close to them, and there might be a delay between activating them and the explosion. And this one will create lightning."

"I feel like we should do more planning," says Black-Clone.

"We've already wasted too much time," Yellow-Clone says, and Naruto can see that most of the other clones have already done something. There are two different bonfires building up, and the One-Tailed Beast's tail has clearly created new gouges in the ground. A mess of ninja wire is webbed around the battlefield, held in place by pillars of wood stabbed into the ground. Two clones are supporting Asano's Uncle who is still chasing and fighting the One-Tail with his wood jutsu, but even from here, Naruto feels like he seems to be slowing down.

"Okay," Red-Clone says, drawing the other clones' attention. "We all swarm the One Tail, Green-Clone, you try and transform into a giant Raccoon Dog, White-Clone, you try and transform into a giant Naruto and punch him right in the face."

"What's the natural predator of a raccoon dog?" Original Naruto asks.

"We don't know," Red-Naruto says, shrugging. "Something with teeth and claws might be good, but we already are trying a lot of new things. Anyway, the rest of us take our share of explosion tags and try to slam them on the One Tail. Activate the tags as soon as you get them on, and then drop. Otherwise, it might absorb you and the unactivated tag."

"I'll take the lightning tag," Original Naruto says, "I don't know how much damage it'll do, but it will be different so I'll focus on that." Red-Clone nods and takes the explosion tags, handing out two to each clone on Team Explosion.

"Ready!" Red-Clone yells, putting his hand down in the middle of the circle. The others join.

"Set!" They all yell together, "Go!"

Naruto runs, legs starting to tighten from already running, jumping, and using chakra. Still, he ducks under a branch of mood as it sweeps across the field and jumps over ninja wire. The One-Tailed Beast roars as its leg is taken off by a ninja wire that pops as soon as it's done its job. The leg reattaches easily, but as it does, a moving wood pillar wraps around its left arm, making sand rain down. Naruto can tell that the wood jutsu does something to the One-Tailed beast differently than he would have expected, but he's not sure what. It seems to do more damage than he would expect - like it's blocking the One-Tailed beast's control of the sand, or something like that.

He takes a running leap at the One-Tailed Beast, landing only slightly above its foot only to immediately push off again, sand already creeping into his shoes and over his fingers, trying to pull him in and crush him like the wood shards littering the ground. He's aiming for the chest where the lightning will hopefully do the most damage.

(He can't help but worry for Gaara, somewhere inside the One-Tailed beast.)

As he keeps going up and up he starts to realise that he's… really high up. Like. Deadly fall, high up. He pulls out a kunai, hoping he can use it to slow the fall at least a little.

The sand wraps around his feet, covering him a little more with every leap. When he reaches the top of the One-Tailed Beasts' massive stomach the Beast yells again and the whole world seems to shake. He can feel as one of the explosion tags must go off as wind sweeps the battlefield and a blast of hot air follows a strangely muffled boom. The sand on his hands and feet tightens and he feels a finger comes out of its joint and his small toes on both feet crack - and not cleanly either.

He lets out a hissed mouthful of air through gritted teeth but can't risk the One-Tailed Beast attacking him in particular, realising he's the real Naruto.

Of course, a clone would be popped by the injury, and after a moment, the massive right hand comes swinging towards Naruto.

He slams down the lightning seal and pushes a mass of chakra towards it before pushing off and starting a free fall.

The air crackles blue - visible streaks of lightning through the air. Sand seems to grow in a lighting shape off of the One-Tailed beast as it roars again. It moves and Naruto is slammed against the sandy mass of the beast. He sticks his kunai into it, trying anything to increase the friction and decrease his speed but the sand parts and his kunai touches nothing.

He falls and falls and until a wooden tendril swings into the corner of his vision and grabs Naruto around the ribs.

It slows his fall too fast.

He feels his ribs crack, his shoulders scream in pain as his arms are popped out of their socket. The wood is warped and rough against his skin where his jumpsuit has torn away. It moves in lurching movements, lowering him to the ground, once jerking horizontally to avoid the One-Tailed Beast's flailing. It sets him down not quite gently, unwrapping from around him and going still next to him. Naruto backs up, out of the accidental stepping range of the One-Tailed Beast - significantly smaller now - which screams and stomps and… and is fighting a massive orange raccoon fox. The Naruto-Racoon Fox doesn't look quite real, its movements too smooth and its shape is unbelievable, but it's there, and it's… arguing with the One-Tailed Raccoon Fox?

And Naruto has a terrible, terrible idea. If the Nine-Tailed Fox is stronger than the One-Tailed Beast, could Naruto force the One-Tailed Beast to retreat? He grabs a clone that's pulling a wire across the field and has it pop his shoulder joints back into their sockets. Then, he stumbles towards Asano's brother, who's sitting up, his one functional arm resting on his knee.

"I'm glad you're okay," Asano's brother says, as Naruto approaches. "I'm still working on handling delicate objects like people with wood."

"Thanks for the catch," Naruto says with a grin, not mentioning his dislocated shoulders. They'd heal fully in the next hour or so, so it wasn't a big deal. His ribs, similarly, would be fine, even if he didn't get medical attention.

"I think the One-Tailed Beast is getting weak," Asano's brother says, smiling a little. "It's been dropping more sand, and the bit of sand that you electrocuted is still in its chest and not moving - its arms are moving slower now too."

"Great! We'll totally beat this thing!" He's not as sure as he sounds, but he has hope.

"I'm worried about Uncle though," Asano's brother says. Naruto follows this gaze, and Asano's Uncle is surrounded by a circle of Naruto, except for a couple of gaps. He's crouched over the ground, hands pressed flat to the dirt and Naruto can see blood on his vest even from here.

"We'll have to finish this quickly then," Naruto says, trying to reassure Asano's brother.

"For sure," Asano's brother grins, "I have no doubt, now help me up!" Naruto hesitates. He looks injured enough that Naruto's not sure that's a great idea, and he can't imagine Asano will be happy with him if her brother gets even more hurt. Still. It's not like Naruto has this fight already taken care of or anything.

"I need a couple of clones over here!" Naruto calls and a few of the limited number still on the field run over. "Two of you to help Asano's brother to his feet."

"My name's Hideo, by the way," Asano's brother says. "You're Naruto Uzumaki, on Sakura's team right?"

"That's me!"

"Well, I look forward to utterly kicking this beast's ass with you!" Hideo says, looking around the field. "Can you teach me the jutsu you're doing? It looks really useful!"

"I'm not allowed to actually," Naruto says, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, ignoring the grinding pain that comes with moving. "It's a forbidden jutsu, and it's not easy to learn either!"

"Oh damn, that's cool. I'm supposed to learn to use wood clones but uh. Mine keep um. Melting," Hideo says, turning pink.

"Ha! That kept happening for me with normal clones, luckily I was awesome enough to learn how to make shadow clones."

"I'm jealous," Hideo says, but he doesn't look jealous, he looks kind of excited. Naruto likes him. That probably doesn't mean much though, Naruto is pretty sure he likes every person he meets who isn't mean to him or his precious people. And Asano's brother he's basically already one of Naruto's precious people.

The Naruto-Raccoon-Fox pops and Naruto feels as its memories integrate. Using the altered sexy jutsu to resize used a lot of chakra. Four clones had combined to make it possible, and with his current chakra pool, Naruto could easily do it several dozen times, but he's not sure how stable it would be.

"Do you know any fire jutsu?" Naruto says, posed thoughtfully and everything.

"No," Hideo says, "I can do some earth jutsu, some water jutsu, but mostly wood release. I'm pretty fast for a genin and I'm stronger than some chunin though." Naruto nods.

"I have a lot of chakra - I heal really quickly," Naruto says, feeling reminiscent of some of Asano's mental training session again.

"Oh cool! So do I!"

"I don't have very good chakra control though, and I only know the academy three jutsu and a distraction jutsu of my own creation."

"Do you think you could distract the One Tail? If you do, I think Uncle and I might be able to work together to skewer it. We tried that before, but it had so much chakra it just completely reformed, I think it's running low on chakra at this point."

"If you think that'll work, then sure!" Naruto feels tired and out of ideas. He's sure more would come to him if he had no other choice, but it's nice to not have to.

Naruto reforms two extra powerful clones (he was trying for one, but his control still isn't stellar) and goes and distracts the One-Tailed Beast while Hideo helps Asano's uncle wrap the One-Tailed Beast in wood, clearly hurting it. The beast seems to start to shrink until it's not much larger than a normal human, yelling and screaming the whole way. In a last attack, it throws a rock at Asano's uncle and hits him square in the chest.

Asano's uncle is thrown back, but his wood stays wrapped around the shrinking beast and Hideo's rage makes spikes form on his own vine-like piece of wood. Blood, not sand, drips from the impaling spikes and Naruto knows it's over. Hideo stumbles forwards, falling against the wooden cage as the last of his energy leaves. Naruto feels about as exhausted.

The last of the One-Tailed Beast seems to dissolve into the ground. Leaving behind Gaara pinned to the ground.

"Why… why are you so mad?" Gaara asks, sounding almost innocent in his curiosity.

"You hurt my Uncle," Hideo says, letting out a deep sigh. "I'm too tired to stay angry though."

"So? Shouldn't you be glad I hurt him and not you?"

"Of course not!" Naruto interrupts, "He's one of Hideo's special people, anyone would rather be hurt than let someone you love get hurt!"

"Love?" Gaara says. And really, that's the end of it. Hideo and Naruto both talk him through his trauma as best they can. When Kiba, Sakura, and surprisingly Shikamaru, arrive with Gaara's siblings, all five of them are a mess but Gaara's siblings are the ones tied up.

Notes:

I have so much respect (and fear) for authors who can share coherent updates longer than 5k.

Chapter 79: Want - Sasuke

Chapter Text

Sasuke feels feverish as hot flushes and frigid chills, strange in the summer heat, spread across his body in turn. His skin prickles at the brush of his softest shirt. He can feel sweat bead up and dry, near instantly, on his skin. His vision blurs and focuses in turn. He swallows with a dry mouth, a dry throat.

"Thorn-paw is with my mother and sister, my mother will protect them both," Asano reassures the (massive, terrifying) bear summons as the others leave them behind. Literally. How is Asano so okay with being left behind? How is she not burning inside?

The bear growls and Sasuke can feel it in his chest. Feels the power in this animal that he's jealous of. That he would do anything to have. (And even then, he knows it wouldn't be enough.)

He knows the seal on his neck scares people. He knows from the way the medic gasped when she saw it and called for a higher level medic. He knows it from the arrival of the terrifying shinobi from the first part of the chunin exam. He knows it because the Hokage approved calling in a shinobi who was out on a mission. He didn't get the chance to speak with the seal master who suppressed his seal. (It's his seal, why shouldn't he get to use it? It made him feel so powerful.)

He knows the seal scares Konoha because they forced him to stay with Asano (well, they didn't specify Asano in particular, but Asano's parents were qualified to "protect" him, and he'd rather stay with her than strangers). Sakura and Naruto forced themselves on the Sakurai. The two of them pretended it was all a game. A sleepover. As if Asano's mother didn't examine his neck in the evening. Asano, the closest thing to a sealing expert in his life, winces when she looks at it.

(Sakura and Naruto act as if Konoha didn't leave Sasuke completely in the dark even as they forced suppression seals upon him, as if they were any better than Orochimaru.)

And now here he is. Forced to step aside. Blocked from testing his skill against even the weak Sand and Sound shinobi currently attacking.

(Here he is. Without a teacher. With Kakashi unconscious indefinitely. He heard the medics. Even if he wakes up, he might never be the same. They won't be able to know until he wakes up.

And even if Kakashi does wake up… Orochimaru beat him easily. Kakashi is one of Konoha's strongest shinobi. And Orochimaru beat him.)

Sasuke is never going to bring the Uchiha to peace like this.

He needs to be strong. He can't be held back by Sakura's obsession with Asano; Naruto's complete lack of self-regulation; Asano inborn weakness; Kakashi's wildly inconsistent behaviour. He needs…

He doesn't know what he needs. He doesn't know how to get it. He tries. He trains and trains and works on Asano's brain puzzles and scavengers the Uchiha archives and it's not enough.

"Stone-tooth says there are people incoming," Asano says, "she's going to go kill as many as she can, but she says you should be prepared." Blood trickles down the side of Asano's face into her face mask.

Sasuke stands and his sternum aches from the blow he took from one of the Sand shinobi that attacked them in the stadium. His shoulder is numb and cold. His eyes are dry and itchy. (He's felt sick since the seal master suppressed Orochimaru's seal. He stumbled yesterday when jogging for the first time in years.)

Stone-tooth ambles into the forest, disappearing surprisingly quickly given its massive stature.

"I don't know if I remembered to say this - given how your mission actually went, but good job on activating your Sharingan," Asano says, giving him a speculative look. She actually had congratulated him before, but it'd been in the middle of the night after they were both woken from nightmares, and she seems to remember less from those liminal times.

"Thanks."

The wind blows, the sun disappears behind the cloud and Sasuke shivers against the seasonably warm weather. Every wiggling shadow catches his eye, every bird taking flight makes him flinch, every rustle of branches makes his sweating hands tighten on his kunai.

Someone screams, but Sasuke can't tell where it's coming from. There are sounds of destruction from the stadium. There's a purple splotch on the top of the stadium that he can't identify. There's so much happening and Sasuke wonders if Konoha is going to be destroyed. The idea is oddly empty. What's losing Konoha compared to losing his family? Especially if he and Asano both survive… maybe even Naruto and Sakura… It would be better than after… After Itachi broke. (Broke under Konoha's pressure. Did they know? Did Konoha know they were pushing Itachi too far?)

He flinches at another shadow but this time something appears out of the trees. There's blood on the shinobi's clothes. There are claw marks across his vest, but his eyes are wild and he's fast. The shinobi snarls at the sight of them. Sasuke's heart thuds.

The world goes sharp.

The shinobi, wearing a Suna headband, has brown skin like Hashirama tree bark in full sun. He has brown hair the same shade as clay bricks. His eyes are the colour of rich damp soil. His white headwrap is torn and a leaf is stuck on the right side. There's something wrapped on his back which he pulls on sharply and Sasuke watches in slow motion, too fast for him to stop but slow enough to watch with ease, as a large scorpion puppet assembles in mid-air.

Even without his Sharingan activated, Sasuke would've guessed there was a risk of poison, but with it, he can see the sheen on the barbed tail. He can see the inaccurate spiked teeth hide within a seemingly innocuous wooden body. He can see the fine needles slide just a centimetre out of the glossy wooden pinchers.

"Be careful Sasuke," Asano is saying because she can never trust that anyone knows anything as if Sasuke is stupid. "Suna specialises in poisons and puppets."

Sasuke feels another bite of annoyance at Sakura for forfeiting in the written exam. If she hadn't, he wouldn't've been attacked by Orochimaru. If she hadn't, he could've been fighting in the finals and he would be carrying more than minimal supplies. He's only even wearing that much because Asano suggested they might want to train after watching the other genin's techniques, but he's not willing to feel thankful since it's at least partly her fault Sakura forfeit.

Still. Nothing to be done about that now.

Now he pulls out a length of Uchiha grade nin-wire and three shuriken. He has a plan. He'll use the nin-wire to secure the puppet then he'll burn it to ash and use nin-wire to either kill or hold the Suna shinobi long enough for Asano's summon to return.

And then the Suna shinobi throws his puppet toward Asano.

Towards Asano, who can't move.

The world goes… fuzzy.

Here's what Sasuke knows: Asano is wounded. She's vomiting. He's kicking the puppet (he feels something crack, feels something in his foot heal). His shoulder hurts, but not as much as his rage burns. His fingers dig into someone else's torn flesh and just death is too good for someone who hurt Asano. (For someone who would target the weak. The vulnerable. The Uchiha, asleep in this homes-)

The (piece of trash, deserves to scream in the Shinigami's stomach for eternity- ) shinobi is dead. Asano is saying his name.

"Sasuke, Sasuke calm down. Aghh-" He's moved from the body to Asano so fast his muscles burn. Or maybe that's from something else. His head feels full and dizzy and his throat feels sore. He feels hot- too hot- he's going to burn. He hears a sizzling but maybe he's imagining it.

Asano grabs at her head in pain, her hands curls, her fingers scratch at her head. (He wants to grab her hand, to tell her to be careful-)

"Asano," his voice sound strange. He sounds like-

(Itachi. Itachi. Itachi. Itachi. Itachi. Itachi. Itachi. Itachi.)

He sounds tired, he sounds distant.

(Asano's hurt. He's not strong enough. Not strong enough. Not enough. He needs more. He needs stronger.)

"Sasuke, the seal-" Asano hisses, a tear slides down her cheek.

He looks down. It looks like there's ink drawn on his hand - his arm. But it looks undeniably alive, moving minutely under his Heaven-Eyes.

"I'm strong enough to protect us, like this," He hears himself say.

"No! No. Sasuke.." Asano closes her eyes and he watches as exhaustion swallows some of her fear. "You need to make it stop. Stone-tooth will be back soon. And I can- I can give you seals to help trap the area, but you need to suppress the seal."

"Why?"

"It's dangerous, Sasuke. Orochimaru doesn't care about anyone but himself. He will use you up and throw you away." (Doesn't sound much different from Konoha to him.) "It might make you stronger now, but it'll come at too high a cost."

He says nothing, he looks at the fear in her eyes. He feels as his eyes pulse in his head.

Then there's more.

He watches as something in Asano moves sluggishly through her body. He watches as sweat beads up in a pore on her forehead. He can see how her hand is going to reach out and touch his face. He can see so much.

"Sasuke - your eye-"

"A new tomoe," Sasuke says, knowing what has happened before she can finish.

"The seal-"

"Fine," Sasuke doesn't care about that anymore. He's unlocked another tomoe. He's one step closer to power. To Itachi. To freedom. (He'll do anything, anything, to reach his goals.)

(The fear and sorrow in Asano's eyes when she saw the seal on his shoulder haunted him that first night in her house. It reached him even as his frustration with himself, with his team, and with Konoha burned away at any fear or hesitation that held him steady.)

He doesn't want Asano to be afraid. He just wants- He just wants power. To not have to be scared anymore. He just- (he doesn't know what he wants any more) -he wants to be okay.

He steadies himself, trying to remember the feeling when he first woke up with the seal spread across his skin - how had it retreated? He had woken up in the arms of a Naruto clone that he'd fought and accidentally popped on instinct, sure that they had lost the fight against Orochimaru. And they had, but Orochimaru had left them, like a cat playing with mice. He had woken up ready to fight for his life, for Sakura's life, for Naruto's life, for Kakashi's life. He had woken up without any enemies to fight and had crumpled to the ground.

The yawning void within him swallows the protective anger he feels for Asano and the seal retreats, he feels as the power crawls back, as the heat fades, leaving him cold. The void, born of That Man (his brother, his favourite person in the entire world, Itachi) takes everything Sasuke can't protect and it disappears. The seal included. It pulls back as the emptiness threatens to consume Sasuke whole.

There's a movement in the corner of his eye and Sasuke moves-

"It's just me!"

Naruto.

(Bitter envy tastes like a sickness on his tongue.)

xXx

Naruto manages to take down a One-Tail and it doesn't help that he did it with the help of Asano's brother and uncle. Naruto. Dead Last took down a tailed beast. Sasuke killed a single enemy shinobi, with Orochimaru's help.

Asano's uncle is standing very, very still, watching the forest around them.

"He's acting like Kakashi-sensei did after you got hurt," Naruto says, watching Asano's Uncle, Yohei. Sasuke doesn't respond, but he watches the man. He can't be very strong if Naruto was able to help him but the paranoid shinobi dies last.

"Should we… go help?" Kiba asks, nodding towards the smoke rising over other parts of Konoha. Sasuke scoffs even though he's not sure either.

"How exactly would we do that?" Asano says, laying on the ground with an arm thrown over her eyes. "I can't move, Naruto, Hideo, and Uncle Yohei all need a medic pretty badly. Sasuke shouldn't use chakra. You already said Akamaru can't fight until he gets his ribs checked. We'd need to scavenge to collect our weapons. Also, we're guarding prisoners." Sasuke glances at the three Sand shinobi out of the corner of his eye. They don't look very dangerous now, but Sasuke won't forget the massive sand monster hiding inside the redhead.

"So, that's a no?" Naruto says. Sasuke wonders if Naruto did the same thing he did during the fight with Orochimaru, where the chakra around him got so dense it was visible. He wonders if Naruto has a bloodline ability he's hidden - or maybe doesn't know he has. He could believe Naruto would be dumb enough to miss his own bloodline ability.

"That's a no. We stay here until someone comes to get us, or until we have to fight more enemies… And even then, if the enemy is from Suna we should use Gaara as a hostage so we don't have to fight."

"I don't believe I would make an effective hostage," the One-Tailed beast container says, "many Suna citizens would celebrate my death."

"Perhaps," Asano says, and even Sasuke can't help raising an eyebrow at how callus that sounds, "but since they attacked Konoha they're really screwed if they don't have a tailed beast, since Konoha was their best ally. So they don't have to like you to know that without you, Suna will definitely be invaded and might even be destroyed."

Gaara hums and Kiba pokes Asano in the side.

"I thought the Fourth killed the Nine-Tail - why hasn't Konoha been attacked if we didn't have a tailed beast?"

Asano lifts her arm off her eyes and stares at Kiba before gesturing around them.

"What do you think is happening right now?"

"Yeah, but it's been like 12 years?"

Asano returns her arm to her eyes and signs,

"I don't know. I don't think Tailed-Beasts have ever been killed before so maybe they thought it was a trap. I'm not sure tailed-beasts can be killed in a traditional manner. It's probably not clear what actually happened. I would bet Lord Fourth sealed it somehow since he was a sealing master."

"So it might not actually be… dead?" Sasuke asks, shuddering. On a Memorial Day, many years past, he remembers his parents describing the horror of the event. That much power and malice… it was terrifying.

"In my opinion? Almost certainly not," Asano says casually as if she isn't forcing his world to re-work itself. Is Konoha in danger from the Kyuubi attacking again? "I would do just about anything to get my hands on the seals that are used on tailed beasts, but even I know that you couldn't seal them easily. Maybe he used his life to seal it into an inanimate object - that would be difficult enough to use his life. Normally sealing a tailed beast into anything without a chakra system would be futile - it would break out eventually as it burned through the seal."

"You know a lot about this," Shikamaru says and Sasuke watches as Asano's whole body flinches.

"Yeah," she says nothing else. Sasuke doesn't bother to listen to the future conversation.

He's been thinking of power on too small a scale. He might need to fight tailed beasts. Forget beating Naruto - he needs to be more powerful than the Fourth Hokage.

His shirt brushes against the seal on his shoulder and Sasuke shudders.

Chapter 80: Cost of Conflict - Sakura

Chapter Text

Sakura wakes up in her own body to the sound of voices, overlapping and urgent. When she opens her eyes, the sky is scarlet with sunset, clouds of dust and ashes hang above Konoha. A Konoha shinobi in a chunin vest is standing some dozen feet away as the others try to explain what happened.

"Alright, alright," the shinobi says, their hands up in surrender. "The fight's over now so head back to Konoha. Check with one of the emergency medics to get an appointment scheduled then check with your jonin sensei, academy teacher, or another supervisor to get instructions. Got it?"

"Got it," Kiba says, unusually serious, slowly and standing from the dust. The rest of them echo him, quiet and serious in their exhaustion. Sakura watches as Asano briefly grabs her head in pain, grits her teeth and straightens forcefully.

"What about them?" Shikamaru asks, gesturing to three tied up Sand Shinobi. One of whom, Sakura recognises as Gaara - the One-Tailed Beast.

"Take them with you, there are people collecting prisoners in the village centre. Hand them off to a shinobi, chunin or higher with a Konoha headband - preferably someone you recognise but," the shinobi shrugs in recognition of their collective inexperience.

"Come on Asano," Hideo chides quietly, "take care of yourself or Mom'll have my hide!"

"You think she's not already planning on taking your hide then you haven't been paying attention," Asano mocks, "you revealed your wood release in front of a bunch of foreigners and then failed to subdue the One-Tailed Beast before it fully escaped."

"There's no way Mom could expect me to take down a tailed beast on my own!" Hideo complains and Sakura laughs because she might not be a Sakurai, but she knows that Yoko has high expectations for her kids and Hideo in particular. Sakura looks around, but Yohei is nowhere to be seen. Strange.

"Idiot! We won't scrape you off the ground if you fall unconscious!" Sasuke says, pulling Naruto up from where he stumbled until Sasuke's partly holding him up.

"I'm fine, you bastard, I can summon some clones to help."

"I'm not sure you should use any more chakra," Kiba says.

"Don't be a hassle, Naruto, just accept the help," Shikamaru adds. Sakura double-takes at Shikamaru, trying to recall when he appeared. The memories after Inner took over are fuzzy and hard to put in order.

("Inner?" Sakura calls.)

The chunin who told them what to do just sighs and leaves, probably clearing the forest of shinobi.

(There's no answer from inside her head.)

xXx

Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke collapse into a pile on Asano's floor. Not evening bothering to set up the sleeping bags they'd been using. According to the stern-faced medic that had treated Asano's concussion under Sakura's watchful eyes, Kakashi-sensei had woken up, taken part in the fighting, then fallen unconscious again. So tomorrow they would report to the mission desk to receive low-level missions until Kakashi-sensei woke up again. Since he was injured he probably won't be sent out of missions immediately unlike most jonin, who would probably be sent out by the end of tomorrow to make sure an aftershock attack wasn't on its way.

In the morning, Sakura wakes early from years of habit, stumbling out of Asano's room to use the toilet on autopilot. On leaving, she pauses, tilting her head to pinpoint why she feels something off. She can't hear anything special… Quietly, she grabs a shuriken from the back of a picture frame where Yoko always has some hidden.

Sakura creeps towards the living room, hoping it's just Thorn-paw and Kimiko messing around or lingering paranoia.

In the living room, Sakura's mom is sitting on the sofa, her head in her hands, a bandage wrapped around her arm and another on her head. Her left hand has padding on it so Sakura knows it was hurt somehow.

Sakura freezes, surprised. Her mom has only been to the Sakurai household a handful of times over the past few years.

Sakura hadn't even considered going home yesterday, not really. Not when Asano had been so hurt and she had felt so strangely disconnected after swapping with Inner. Had her parents returned home to find her not home and wondered if she was okay? Where was her dad?

"Mom?" Sakura croaks, throat dry and rough from sleep. Mom looks up, eyes red and salty tear tracks visible on her face. "Mom? What's wrong."

"Oh, honey," Mom says, voice hushed and tight. Mom opens her arms and Sakura throws herself into them, holding her mom against her, feeling the bandages under Mom's shirt and wondering how badly she was injured. "Sakura, your dad-" Mom breaks off and Sakura freezes. "He was protecting some civilians and got caught in an explosion…"

"Is he okay? I know the hospital's full," Sakura says as if pleading for him to just be wounded. Just unconscious. Just almost dead like Kakashi-sensei.

"No. No, sweetheart… He's not okay. He was caught under a wall and no one found him until afterwards." Sakura can feel Mom's unwounded hand petting her filthy hair. She can hear Mom swallow. "He was declared dead at the scene… They said with all the deaths there will be a mass funeral at the end of the week." Mom keeps talking.

Dad can't be dead. He's her dad. He's funny and lighthearted and so in love with Mom. He likes weaponry and thinks coffee is too bitter and likes doing his hair. He can't-

"No," Sakura whispers.

"I'm sorry, honey," Mom whispers back. "I'm so sorry."

"He can't."

Mom just holds her tighter as Sakura cries. And still, Inner Sakura is silent.

xXx

The day does not get better.

The Third Hokage died fighting Orochimaru who still managed to escape. The hospital is too busy to update them on Kakashi-sensei except to say that he's still unconscious and they're not sure he'll wake up.

The only good thing is that with how crazy everything is, Asano is kicked out of T&I because they're too busy to have anyone not fully qualified to work in there. So instead she's allowed to join Team 7 while they're sent out to collect weapons, move rubble, and start rebuilding. They're even given a couple of C-Rank missions because Asano is qualified to disable seals.

In more annoying things: Naruto spend the entire day telling anyone who will listen about taking down Gaara, the story becoming more and more exaggerated with every rendition. He doesn't seem to notice how upset Asano is by Naruto's near-deadly fall and for that, Sakura is definitely going to kick his ass during their next spar.

(Her dad is dead and nothing changes.)

xXx

Asano holds her close as Sakura cries and Sakura remembers doing the same for Asano when Taro disappeared.

She makes Asano be the one to tell the others what happened since her mom left before they woke up. Yoko pulls Sakura to the side and asks her if she wants to add her dad's picture to the small memorial in the living room for Taro. When Sakura cries, Yoko is gentle as she wipes the tears away.

"I know you'll make him proud," Yoko says and Sakura wants to die of embarrassment but is too thankful for the comfort to push Yoko away.

xXx

The four of them gather in Kakashi-sensei's hospital room over lunch. Naruto suggested maybe they'll annoy him into waking up and Sakura is feeling the same underlying panic that probably made him suggest it in the first place.

The mass funeral was yesterday.

Konoha has finally started opening up shops again, civilians were allowed out of the bunkers the day before yesterday. Things are slowly, slowly starting to go back to normal.

Except Kakashi-sensei's still unconscious and the medics don't seem optimistic.

"So that's where you are, brat," a voice says, and the four of them turn to see the sealing master that suppressed the seal Orochimaru gave Sasuke. He's pointing at Sasuke. They hadn't spoken to him at the time, and Sasuke had been unconscious while he had done it. For such an impressive figure, he sounds more like one of the old men at the market who gave discounts to young women.

Sakura glances at the others, Asano is watching the old guy closely. He's worth paying attention to, then.

"You were told not to pull on your chakra too hard and to stay calm because you would activate Orochimaru's seal - did you listen?" The old guy narrows his eyes at Sasuke as if he had a choice when Konoha was invaded. Sakura already knows Sasuke used the seal since Asano was fussing over him like he was Kimiko. She almost feels like she should thank him for protecting Asano.

"He used it when I was attacked while unable to move," Asano says, which isn't exactly how it sounded to Sakura before now, but Sakura's not going to try and get Sasuke into trouble.

"It's always urgent at the time," the old guy rolls his eyes, "lemme see it," he beckons Sasuke over towards the door and Sakura doesn't miss the way Asano tenses momentarily before relaxing again.

The room is quiet, a low level of tension simmering - just enough that Naruto knows not to go back to talking about Konohamaru but not so tense he tries to attack the seal master either.

"Well, good job, you completely broke my suppression seal. You are now completely banned from all chakra usage until I can fix it."

"How long," Sasuke demands, looking like he's about to go missing-nin if the old guy pushes it.

"Depends on how much Orochimaru's changed the seal over the past decade." The old guy hums, faux thoughtful. "Less than a year, probably. More than a week, probably. Luckily for you, it means you gotta stick near me until I can fix it though. Not many get the privilege of accompanying The Great Jiraiya - Toad Sage and Legendary Pervert."

Sasuke takes an immediate step away from the old guy - Jiraiya, supposedly.

"Like, Tsunade and Orochimaru's teammate, Jiraiya?" Naruto asks, and Sakura's not thankful for Naruto asking the question before she has to, but she's not annoyed by it either.

"That's the one," Asano says before the weird old guy gets the chance to do more than open his mouth.

"Sasuke, do you remember how to k-" Naruto start, smiling, teasing.

"Don't," Asano cuts off, not joking. Naruto looks at her and Sakura gets an uncomfortable feeling in her gut that is usually joined by a comment from Inner. Her thoughts are quiet though, as she realises that Asano stopped Naruto from presumably joking about their 'how to kill people' game. Right, maybe don't joke about killing the guy responsible for taking care of Sasuke. Of the four of them, Asano is obviously the most knowledgeable on the topic of Jiraiya. Even Sasuke "Don't need your help" Uchiha is watching Asano, ready to follow her lead.

"You remind me of someone," Jiraiya says, leaning far too close to Asano for comfort. "What's your name, girlie?"

"Asano Sakurai," Asano says, tone flat.

"Hmm, I'm not familiar with that name. You look like your daddy?"

Asano shrugs.

"Your mother's name?"

Sakura is about ready to snap at the 'legendary pervert' to mind his own damn business.

"Yoko Sakurai, nee Hayashi."

"Yoko Hayashi," the pervert laughs, "now I haven't heard that name in a decade, what's she up to these days." He pauses, but before Asano can reply, he continues, "though I suppose you wouldn't know about the interesting stuff, hahaha!"

"She's retired now," Asano says, tone a hint admonishing behind the flatness, "chakra poisoning from the Kyuubi." Her eyes flick to Naruto as she says that and Sakura remembers that they were both born on the day of the Kyuubi attack. From what Asano said, she had been born prematurely because of the attack. Maybe Naruto had been born prematurely too and that's why he was so dumb. (Even as she thinks it, she regrets it, because Inner's not there to be on Naruto's side. Because he not dumb, not really.)

Jiraiya follows the flickers of Asano's eyes before looking back at her face.

"What are the chances," Jiraiya says, but it's not a question, it's not even clear what he's referring to. He turns to Sakura. "What about you, you got a connection to Tsunade Senju too?"

Sakura laughs. She can't help it. If he'd asked her that a couple of months ago she would've shaken her head and asked if they were talking about the famous medic. Now she knows that she's read a teenaged Tsunade's research notebook.

"You're kidding," Jiraiya smiles, and there's something bitter in it, even along with the seemingly genuine joy she sees. "How?"

"Do you happen to recall a sealing notebook you worked on that you put a mind-altering seal on?" Asano asks. Jiraiya turns back to her, raising an eyebrow.

"Vaguely."

"Well, it ended up in the library along with…" Asano glance at Sakura.

"Asano got your notebook, I got Tsunade and… and Orochimaru's."

"Huh," Jiraiya sounds stunned.

"She wants to be a medic, like Tsunade," Asano says, smiling at Sakura, nudging her with her elbow.

"Better follow Tsunade's footsteps than Orochimaru's, I guess…" Jiraiya turns and walks out of the room without another word.

"That was weird," Naruto says, sotto voce.

The four of them watch the door for a moment, but Jiraiya doesn't reappear.

xXx

Four birds land on Asano's window sill.

With Kakashi-sensei still unconscious, Sasuke was still required to stay at Asano's house, so Naruto and Sakura and both agreed they wanted in too. Asano's room was definitely a little too full, but Asano's dad had full-on tripped over Sasuke when he slept in the living room. No one was stupid enough to suggest Naruto and Sasuke sleep in Taro's empty room either.

Asano looks at the birds wide-eyed before reaching for one of the scrolls, reading the ID on it.

"Naruto, it's for you," she tosses it to him and grabs the next one. "Sasuke," she grabs the next one. "Mine," and without reading it she hands the last one to Sakura.

The birds fly off without waiting for a reply.

Sakura looks down at the small scroll. She's learned how they worked, briefly, in the academy, but shinobi only really got them once they were high-level, or had been assigned missions - which also usually only applied to high-level shinobi because they were the ones that had specialised skills.

Sakura opens the scroll and scans the message. She stops and reads it again.

"I've been assigned to a B-rank mission under Jiraiya," Asano says, sounding like someone just punched her in the gut.

"Same," Naruto says. Sasuke grunts. That's what Sakura's message says too. But that doesn't make sense. "We leave tomorrow at noon," Naruto says, "but it doesn't really say what kind of mission we're going on."

"Do you remember what your default pack should look like?" Sakura asks. Naruto shakes his head. Sakura lets her curiosity in the ridiculous nature of the situation disappears behind the details.

xXx

"Can we… ask what our mission goal is?" Naruto asks Jiraiya, peering up at the pervert's face.

Sakura, and she's guessing Asano and Sasuke, decided asking wasn't worth having to speak with Jiraiya who'd turned up looking hungover and smelling weird if Naruto's wrinkled nose was an indicator.

Jiraiya just groans and waves Naruto off.

"Great," Asano huffs and Sakura can't disagree. Even ever-joyous Naruto looks annoyed as he falls back to walk in line with the three of them.

Chapter 81: Family Bonds and Growing Up - Naruto

Chapter Text

It's way more fun to go on missions with Asano. It's almost immediately obvious. Especially compared to when they're usually away from Konoha, Sakura is in a better mood, and Asano usually has her little summon with her and he's super cute. Asano also drifts between them, asking questions and keeping silence from settling too long. Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi-sensei all tend towards silence, usually leaving Naruto the only one keeping the conversation going.

Pervy-Jiraiya seems happy enough to talk, once his hangover fades. His opinion of himself is embarrassingly high, and Naruto watches as Asano suppresses laughter a handful of times. Asano is happy to talk with Naruto about his new attempts at tracking, though Pervy-Jiraiya keeps mentioning how toads are much cooler than dogs for some reason. Asano gives Pervy-Jiraiya a wide-eyed look the first time he says something but just looks amused afterwards.

Sakura even joins in the conversation, since Asano's there. Sasuke stays to the back though. He looks twitchy, which Naruto can understand. The last time they left Konoha, Sasuke got attacked and bitten by Orochimaru! Naruto's a bit on edge for the same reason, but not as much as Sasuke.

"So…" Asano leans towards the Perv. "What are we doing? Where are we going? And why? No one told us anything… including you"

"We're going to get my old teammate, Tsunade," Jiraiya says.

"Didn't we also do the- " Naruto cuts himself off, glancing at Jiraiya. Maybe he shouldn't mention how they discussed how to murder Jiraiya and his teammate. Asano looks to him and he watches as she remembers a moment later.

"Yes," she smiles, "yes she is."

"She's the one you-?" Jiraiya prompts. Asano laughs and waves him off,

"I used for her for a strategy discussion a few months ago. She's super strong, literally. And her healing is insane." Jiraiya nods mock thoughtfully.

Jiraiya doesn't seem all that awful in a lot of ways. A huge pervert, of course, but that just means Naruto has a secret weapon at hand. But Naruto can smell the grief and joy and regret that makes him distrustful of Jiraiya. It's such a strange mix of emotions and there's something… Oily mixed in that he can't discern.

"She really is incredible," Jiraiya says, "that's why we're going to get her." He leans towards Asano and mock whispers, "that's why she's going to be the next Hokage."

"Didn't she retire?" Asano says, looking like she's tasted something unpleasant, "and leave the village, like over a decade ago? And hasn't returned since?"

"That's right," Jiraiya says.

"And you want her to be Hokage?" Naruto says, understanding the look on Asano's face. That sounds like an offence to the office of Hokage.

"She's the best choice," Jiraiya says, and he doesn't look upset, but Naruto notices the way his scent sours further and Jiraiya turns very slightly away from them.

"I guess there's not a lot of other choices," Asano says, glancing at Sakura.

"What do you mean?" Naruto says - the idea seems insane. How could there not be a ton of people trying to be Hokage?

"A lot of shinobi died during the third shinobi war, then the Kyuubi attack, then Suna and Sound's invasion… Konoha's lost a lot of good shinobi over the past twenty years. To be Hokage you have to have a strong reputation, so it needs to be someone other nations will recognise and respect. So that leaves… maybe a dozen shinobi? Then it needs to be someone with skill at diplomacy and is the right age…"

Naruto stares at Asano. He probably should've asked Asano about this before. Sakura and Sasuke basically never think about things they don't care about, but Asano's mentioned before how she wants to learn everything about everything.

"At least twenty years old, less than say sixty, on the upper end. The third Hokage's peers are probably famous enough, but probably not strong enough anymore, and we want someone who'll be able to rule for another decade at least. Does Gai Maito have a high level of skill at genjutsu and ninjustu? I know he's a taijutsu expert…" Asano trails off and Naruto knows she misses the surprised glance Jiraiya sends her way.

"If Asano wants to be Hokage, I'll be supporting her," Sakura says, joking but Naruto knows, also not.

"Of course not," Asano says, obviously still in her thinking fugue, "Naruto's going to be Hokage. But in the meantime…"

Naruto stops dead in the street. Asano keeps moving but Sakura pauses after a couple of steps.

"What?" Sakura says, sending him an almost concerned look, "haven't you noticed how supportive she of you?" She looks away as if she doesn't care. Naruto smells something that seems… almost self-conscious in Sakura's scent. "She's believed in you since the academy." Sakura doesn't look at him as she grabs his wrist and drags him to catch up. Naruto lets her.

He knows Asano was the first one to treat him even a little seriously, but when he learned more about her, he thought it was just her being… open-minded.

"I'm not surprised," Sasuke says quietly and Naruto pulls his wrist out of Sakura's grip (always harder than it seems like it should be) to go pick a fight with Sasuke so he doesn't have to think about it anymore.

(She believes in him.)

They travel slowly, walking for hours and hours each day, but stopping at every shop, inn, and pitstop. It only takes a few days for Naruto's opinion of Jiraiya to plummet. It's one thing to write gross books like Icha Icha, but they find him spying on women at the onsens and Naruto starts yelling. Asano seems to be frozen in shock and Sakura… Naruto might have to stop her from trying to murder him. Not that doesn't want to join her, but Sakura isn't known for going easy and he doesn't want this Pervert to actually hurt her.

Sasuke's Sharingan is activated as he sends Jiraiya a scathing look.

"Disgusting," Sasuke says, turning and leaving. At that moment, the women from the onsen drawn by Naruto's yelling, spot Jiraiya and start to attack. Naruto, unfortunately, used to mobs, grab Asano and Sakura by the collars of their shirts and truck it after Sasuke.

"What're we gonna do about the Pervert's creeping?" Naruto asks that night, all four of them crammed into a single room with Jiraiya on his own in another. Normally on a mission at least one of them would share a room with him, but none of them feels comfortable with that, especially now.

"What can we do?" Asano says, sounding worn. "He's a jonin - a strong one at that - and he's supposed to be our mission head, and maybe even a teacher." She quiet for a moment. "If we piss him off too badly, it puts our lives at risk."

"You don't think-" Sakura bolts up, looking to Asano.

"I don't think he'd actually hurt us or anything," Asano says slowly, "but if he's running further from us to spy, then if we get into danger it'll take him a longer time to find us. If we bother him too much he might work harder to ignore us, putting us at risk. He might not want to teach us, making us weaker." Asano pauses again, rolling over in her sleeping bag on the floor since Sakura and Sasuke won the rock-paper-scissors games for the beds tonight. "He holds all the power here right now."

"Surely we can do something," Naruto says, "prank him or something. He doesn't even have to know it's us."

"I think it's unlikely he won't know." Asano says slowly, considering, "but if we prank him enough to annoy him a little, but not actually upset him, that'd probably be fine?"

Naruto buys glitter at the first of the larger town they pass through. A lot of glitter. It's one of the best items in his pranking arsenal and he's thinking of putting some in his weapons pouch. It's not hard to pretend to trip and spill some in the Pervert's hair. The next day it's sticking to the Pervert's skin, and scattered on his clothes. Naruto grins behind his back and shares a quiet fist bump with Asano.

The next day they stop at an onsen as a group to actually wash, dusty from the road. When Jiraiya peeks through to the women's side, Naruto feels real, burning rage rise up because Asano and Sakura are over there. (Is that all it takes to pull on the Kyuubi's power? After all the grief it caused him during his fight against Gaara!) That evening though, Asano pulls Naruto to the side to point out how sticky the Pervert's sandals are.

"I poured syrup on his sandals," Asano says, giving Naruto a cautious look. "I'm new to pranking…" She admits a moment later. "Is that good?" Naruto laughs.

"That's great! There'll be bugs all over his sandals!" He grabs his stomach trying not to double over at the idea of the Pervert waking to ants all over his shoes.

He and Asano discuss trying to cut his hair and ultimately, reluctantly, agree it would be too dangerous to approach him while sleeping, and might genuinely upset him enough for it to be a bad idea.

The Pervert often abandons them in towns and inns, telling them to be sensible and then disappears to go be disgusting. The four of them stick together as both Asano and Sasuke are twitchy and on edge.

"Konoha looked weak," Asano explains, "by being invaded, so they'll probably be a number of attacks to test Konoha. Right now I'm not even sure I'd count us as 'at peace' since the status quo has been so disrupted." Sasuke might grumble about the rest of them, but he doesn't try very hard to go off on his own, even when he snaps at them or attacks Naruto with a bit more intensity than usual.

They often wander around, buying food and souvenirs before retiring to the hotel and playing card games, or reading and studying in Asano and Sakura's cases. Sasuke does meditation and katas in their room, careful to not break anything. Naruto feels lazy as hell. Sometimes he even reads the short stories Asano writes, though, between her, frankly, barely legible handwriting, regular grammatical mistakes, and the occasional complex kanji, it takes him a while.

He's never spent this much time around Asano before, even when he was sleeping over at her house. It's pretty fun. Asano can even occasionally makes Sasuke chill.

When the four of them share a room, sometimes she and Sasuke wake him up. It usually starts with him sleeping and smelling something that smells like battery acid and spoiled food. It starts to wake him from sleep and then he realises the sound of someone's breathing has changed.

He's never considered himself sensitive to that sort of thing before, but it happens multiple times a week. The room is quiet when he blinks against the dark. He hears the sound of sheets moving a bit and it takes a while for him to see in the dark. Asano reaches down from the bed she'd won that night and is holding Sasuke's hand. Naruto realises they're both awake, Sasuke breathing is too fast, too short, and too sharp and Asano's sounds carefully controlled. His eyes focus and he can see Asano's finger on Sasuke's hand, tapping.

He takes a silent breath and rolls away from moments that feel so private, so personal.

One day, Jiraiya announces that he's going to teach them as if he deserves a round of applause for it.

"Yeah okay, Pervert," Naruto dismisses, knowing calling him "pervert" instead of "super-pervert" was annoying to him for some reason. "I'll believe it when I see it." Sasuke hums in agreement and Asano and Sakura both share sceptical looks.

"If you don't want to learn a super cool jutsu…" The pervert trails off and Naruto rolls his eyes even if he is at least a little interested. He might be a pervert, but Asano had said he taught the Fourth Hokage, so he got to be good for something. "Do you kids know your chakra element?"

"I do," Asano says. Naruto looks from person to person, hoping someone will explain what a chakra element is, but he's gotten better at asking so he will if he has to.

"Uchiha are fire," Sasuke says and the Pervert raises a finger, so obviously proud of himself for getting to have something to say.

"Not all! Some are lightning or even earth!"

"I don't," Sakura says and Naruto lets out a discrete sigh.

"I don't either, but I bet it's super cool."

"Alright, well these are expensive, so be careful." The pervert hands out chakra paper which reveals Naruto as naturally having wind chakra, Sasuke as lightning natured, and Sakura as water natured. The pervert offers one to Asano and her discomfort is almost palpable when she declines. Naruto doesn't miss how interested Jiraiya is in Asano decline. (Naruto's curious too, but he's not going to make Asano more uncomfortable, or make her feel vulnerable in front of Jiraiya.)

"Well, I have a really cool jutsu for you," the Pervert says, pointing at Naruto, "and I'll help you," he points to Asano, "with sealing." He turns and looks to Sasuke and Sakura. "You two are my troublemakers." The pervert sighs, "you want to be a medic?" Sakura nods, gaze sharp on Jiraiya as if daring him to make a dumb comment. "What about you kid?"

Something furious passes over Sasuke's face and it puts Naruto on edge. He's angry a lot these days, even more than he usually is.

"I don't know yet," Sasuke mutters.

"Okay, okay, give me a minute," Jiraiya does a thinking pose and after a moment Naruto grimaces, realising he makes the same one. "Taijutsu is probably the best against a genjutsu master, but at your age, you'll be a bit limited, so you'll want some ninjutsu or weaponry to supplement it. Genjutsu can get thrown off if you can move faster than the caster can follow since it'll warp, so speed training is probably a good idea." The pervert nods to himself and Naruto glances to the others to make sure they're hearing it too.

It actually… seems like Jiraiya is genuinely thinking about it.

"Of course with Naruto specialising in ninjutsu, an obvious choice with his chakra stores, and Sakura in genjutsu since medic work requires even finer chakra control than genjutsu work, you'll help balance the team with taijutsu. Alright, alright, I know what we'll do."

Jiraiya sets Naruto up trying to burst a water balloon first, pulling the supplies out of a seal that Asano side-eyes.

"I get the impression…" Naruto whispers into her ear, "that he may have planned this."

"I was thinking the same," she says, sounding equally creeped out. "But only for you."

"… And maybe you." They share an exaggerated grossed-out look - the pervert seems to restrain himself to adult women, but Naruto at least has stayed alert. Jiraiya sets Sasuke up walking on his hands while trying to hold a stick between his feet. It's hilarious to watch, but the fury rising in Sasuke's scent is worrying.

"You," Jiraiya turns to Sakura with something like delight in his eyes, "will be casting genjutsu on Sasuke, and Sasuke alone. I'll walk you through one example, but if you use the same illusion twice and Sasuke tells me, then you'll be running laps." The Pervert looks so proud of himself.

"Okay," Sakura says, cautious but Naruto can tell that she's excited.

It's some sort of festival in the city they enter. Naruto's less interested in that than getting a chance to take a nap, but he does at least notice it. Asano seems to look past it in a way that Sakura and Sasuke can't. Festivals aren't usually a fun time for Naruto, so it makes him more anxious than star-struck or excited. They're outside of Konoha though... Small flickers of excitement jump in his stomach. People won't know and dismiss him here. The smells from the food stalls makes his stomach growl and his mouth waters.

Sakura's eyes seem to shine as she looks at the lights, the people, the food. It's the first time in at least a month that Naruto feels his heart skip a beat at Sakura's beauty - and she is beautiful. Pastel pink hair and green eyes and smooth pale skin, hidden muscles, and a brain like nothing else.

Naruto's mostly gotten over his very minor crush since he was pretty sure Sakura was into Asano. Sakura was either into Asano exclusively, or at least just girls - he had, after all, followed Sakura's eyes to see them linger on Ino after physical education sessions. At least, that was where Naruto would put his money, and he doesn't begrudge Sakura her preferences - he gets it! Sometimes he wishes he was a girl, they are so pretty and cool! So he got over it, tried not to bother her with it, tried to think about other things.

Still. The warmth on her face, only available when Asano was nearby, was enchanting. The curl of her lips into that tiny smile made heat rise in his face. Her glances towards Asano, reaching out a hand to lock fingers makes a well-known jealousy rise in his stomach. But that's not who Naruto wants to be, so he forces himself to look at their intertwined fingers for a moment longer before darting from cart to cart despite his exhaustion. He's happy for her, he wants Sakura to be happy. It would just be nice if someone felt the same emotion for him that Sakura feels for Asano, that's all.

"We're going to get dinner then you kids can go take a nap," the Pervert laughs, winking at a woman walking by who starts to walk a bit faster. He drags them to a dodgy looking gambling establishment and bursts in without a hint of shame at the four kids following him.

"Dinner for five, sake for three, and have you seen a blonde woman with massive-" Jiraiya gestures to his chests to mime boobs, like a child. Not that Naruto's judging. It's just that he doesn't really like Jiraiya all that much and thinks he's a massive creep and quite possibly a waste of space. (He was more confident on how useless Jiraiya was before he actually gave them some training to do. Naruto hasn't quite figured out the second step Jiraiya's given him, but the other three seems intrigued and they know more about jutsu than Naruto does. Asano in particular had encouraged him to try his best.)

The man behind the bar gives Naruto and the others a sceptical look before looking back to the Pervert and nodding slowly.

"I might've seen someone like that." He turns around and pulls down a drink from the top shelf and places it on the bar. "Make it worth my while and I'll try and recall what I saw." The pervert laughs. He laughs and pulls out a wad of money and easily hands over what looks to be a week's worth of groceries to Naruto's eyes.

Would it be unkind to decide that he loathes Jiraiya? Yes. Does he loathe Jiraiya? Perhaps. He's definitely gross and annoying, and Asano's quiet attention towards the man makes Naruto even more suspicious. He suspects she admires his sealing skill in the very least, which is understandable, he supposes.

"Is that enough?" The Pervert asks, leaning on the bar and taking a swig from the bottle the barman had pulled down. The barman flicks through the bills before nodding slowly.

"It sure does. She's been around to drink in the evenings twice now. But I've heard she's spending big money at the gambling den around the corner. It's just a door in the wall, but it's not too hard to find from here."

"Well that makes my job easier," the Pervert says, yawning. "All right brats, pile around one of those tables so we can get this show on the road."

Dinner is acceptable. The Pervert and Asano both seem to be a bit on edge, looking towards doors and windows at every pause. Sakura is quietly absorbed in her meal and Sasuke… Sasuke's face is empty as he eats. Hopefully just too distant in thoughts to bother emoting, but there's a dusty, acrid smell from Sasuke's direction that makes Naruto nervous.

When they leave the bar, the Pervert pauses. Asano looks at him and frowns before putting her hands together and using transformation jutsu to appear as an older version of herself… including some generous assets.

"That's handy," the Pervert says, visibly ogling the transformed Asano's chest.

"Thanks," Asano says, voice impressively different, it's lower, a bit husky, and Naruto feels like he's missing something from the impressed look on the Pervert's face. "I worked hard on it."

"It's not going to trick Tsunade for long, I'm afraid." The Pervert says, looking Asano up and down. At that moment, Naruto realises that Asano looks like the Sexy Jutsu version of herself, but a little toned down and clothed.

"Oh!" He follows suit, shaping the chakra bubble for sexy jutsu except making sure that instead of perfectly placed clouds he's wearing a cute floral dress he'd seen Ino wear once.

"Is that Ino's dress?" Sakura says, looking him up and down.

"Yeah!" Naruto twirls, feeling his pigtails and skirt spin. Sexy jutsu always feel so different from his own body but in a fun way! "Don't I look cute!"

"You do!" Asano says, grabbing his hands the way she used to do with Sakura when she was excited. "Do we look related? I think we look a little related!" She grabs Naruto and adjusts him so they stand side by side and look down at Sakura.

"You look like one of Hideo's pervery magazines," Sakura sniffs, "same exact body, different hair colour." Asano gasps in mock betrayal.

"How could you say that! Naruto obviously has softer cheeks, a smaller chest, and a smaller tummy!"

"Yeah! And Asano has a higher nose bridge and larger arm muscles!" Naruto adds, grinning. It's exciting to see someone else recognise the awesomeness of sexy jutsu, even if Asano might not be doing it the same way, it looks the same which is good enough and he'll show her how to make it more durable when they have some downtime. He can feel how delicate her transformation just through their joined hands.

"Come on, it'll be easier to go into the gambling den if you look like an adult," Asano says to Sakura, sounding both coaxing and chiding in tone. She pulls her forehead protector off her head and looks down it at. "Is it worth putting away to get a bit of extra sneak on Tsunade?" She asks Jiraiya who pauses before shaking his head.

"Shinobi are pretty recognisable when you've been seeing them as long as Tsunade and I have. And you'll get more respect with the forehead protector from civilians so keep it on."

Asano reties her forehead protector while Sakura uses a transformation jutsu, but it looks like a first version. Asano had clearly practised her adult version of herself, while Sakura clearly hadn't. The result is a warped look, strangely stretched legs, and a lack of detail in the skin and clothing, the face looks wrong in the minute ways they've learned to correct. Asano shakes her head,

"We can work on it later, try doing my mom or something." Asano and Sakura both pause and without a word, Asano puts Sakura into a tight hug. The smell of grief, guilt, and relief waft off of them, and Naruto decides to keep his mouth shut for now. Sakura has smelled like grief a lot since her dad died, enough that he now recognises the scent for what it is, instead of just the sad-longing-anger-misery he used to think of it as. In retrospect, Kakashi-sensei smelled like grief a lot too.

"Come on you two," the Pervert says, waving at Sasuke and Sakura, "get your transformation going so I don't have to get more dirty looks."

"Not that you don't deserve them," Asano says, almost fondly as she rolls her eyes.

"Yes, but I detest getting them for the wrong reasons!"

"That's fair, I suppose" Asano shrugs, pulling back from Sakura who transforms in another puff of smoke and is replaced by a standing version of Asano's Mom.

"I've never seen your mom walk," Sakura says, taking a few careful steps, adjusting her gait.

"Yeah, it's one thing to see her stand to reach a high shelf, but it's not really good enough to get a good sense of movement," Asano says, "I can't even remember what she used to move like before Kimiko was born, it would've been different when she could use chakra purposefully."

"Well…" Jiraiya looks at Sakura, a strange look on his face, "you'll definitely get Tsunade's attention." Asano stills again and looks at Jiraiya who raises an eyebrow at her. Asano grimaces and shakes her head and Jiraiya returns a small laugh. Naruto hates silent conversations.

"Come on Sasuke, it's not that bad. Just do Iruka-sensei or something," Asano says and Naruto laughs. Iruka-sensei was the default transformation at the academy so Asano is kinda insulting Sasuke by suggesting him. From Sasuke's scowl, that's how he took it. He makes the hand signs and disappears in a puff of smoke.

When the smoke clears, Naruto's mouth goes dry. It's an adult version of Sasuke. A very handsome, almost beautiful looking Sasuke. A strange thought, since in the Academy Naruto had thought Sasuke had just looked like a brooding bastard. Now, Naruto knows that he's not that bad. It makes it easier to understand why girls in the class like Ino could sometimes be weird around him even before this transformation.

His hair is cut short, spikes around his head like a dark halo, a longer strand on each side frame his face. His eyes are deeper set in his face than they normally are, small lines in his face like Old Man Hokage (a pang of sadness shoots through his chest). His lips are in a resting position, making a small frown. His skin is a bit tanner. His clothes remain very Sasuke, the dark blue, high collared shirt, with full-length shinobi blue trousers. A sword is strapped to his back.

"I see you've practised too," Jiraiya says, sounding thoughtful, his Adam's apple bouncing as he swallows and adds in a slightly rough tone, "you look like a Uchiha."

"Good," Sasuke says, and his voice is deep and smooth but still inherently Sasuke. Naruto feels a nudge on his arm and looks up to see Asano giving him an amused look.

"Nice look Sasuke," Asano says easily, "ready to go?"

When they walk down the street Naruto notices how different the attention is. As adults, they no longer attract the same suspicious stares towards the Pervert. But now they're a group of four Konoha shinobi and the Pervert who looks like a shinobi. Now they get some double looks from older looking folk, while kids stare at them with stars in their eyes. It's so different from Konoha it almost puts Naruto on edge.

He tried, once or twice, buying groceries under a transformation jutsu. It felt like letting the people who hated him win. It felt like they won by making him disappear, so even though it made his life easier, he refused.

The gambling den looks so much like a gambling den, Naruto's almost suspicious. A plain, unmarked metal door between two different shops. The Pervert knocks on the door and opens it when there's no reply. Inside the steps descend to a basement level, flickering lights keeping the space from absolute darkness.

"Into the abyss," Asano mutters, looking at the concrete walls with suspicion. Jiraiya pauses and gives Asano an assessing look before making his way down the stairs.

At the bottom is a woman behind a desk.

"Welcome," she says, smiling a little but her eyes are dark, "what are you looking for today?"

"I'm looking for a blonde woman, losing a lot, probably accompanied by a dark-haired woman and a pig," Jiraiya says, leaning on the counter and smiling widely at the woman. The woman in turn gives each member of their group a careful look.

"Of course Sir, may I ask you try to keep damages to a minimum?"

"We'll try," Jiraiya says, in a tone that's not encouraging even to Naruto's ears.

She leads them to a back room. The door she opens reveals a luxurious looking room, and a blonde woman flipping a table.

"I'm not paying out to a cheat like you!" The blonde woman yells, pulling up a sleeve to reveal impressively muscled arms that she winds up to punch the man backing up slowly.

"Tsunade!" Jiraiya calls, false cheer in his voice.

"YOU," Tsunade turns, her eyes almost seem to glow red in her rage. "You must be the reason…" She looks Jiraiya up and down and then she looks at the four of them behind and Jiraiya and she stills, almost seeming to deflate. "I knew there was a reason I won the jackpot," she sighs. "Yoko. What are you doing here."

"Sorry," Asano says, "I forgot you'd recognise my mom, that's actually my friend Sakura."

Tsunade looks at Asano for a long moment. Naruto watches as she swallows, pauses, grabs a bottle of sake, downs it, and looks at Asano again.

"You look like your aunt," Tsunade says finally. Naruto glances at Asano, not remembering any references to her aunt. Asano looks surprised.

"Really? Mom and Dad don't talk about Aunt Yoshiko."

"I'm not surprised," Tsunade says after a minute. She turns to the man she'd been menacing when they enter. "Excuse me, it seems I've been called away."

"Oh," a voice from behind them says and Naruto turns to see a woman with dark hair and a pig in her arms look between everyone. "Did something happen?"

"You could say so," Jiraiya says, "let's go somewhere a bit more private."

The hotel room they end up in is a bit crowded, with everyone sitting on the floor, dishes set out around them to share.

"So?" Tsunade says, pointing her chopsticks rudely at the Pervert, "what happened?"

"Konoha was invaded during the chunin exams," Jiraiya says softly, "Orochimaru… Orochimaru led it and killed sensei." The room is too full of people to tell the smell of people apart easily, but Tsunade reeks of alcohol, even more than Jiraiya. She grabs one of the many bottles of sake she'd bought on their way to the hotel, opens it, and drinks the whole thing down in one long go. Jiraiya and the dark-haired woman - Shizune - wince.

"Well that's predictable," Tsunade says once she drops the empty sake bottle. "What do you want me to do about it?"

Jiraiya says nothing, just looks at Tsunade until she shakes her head.

"No way, I'm not becoming Hokage. That position is cursed, and my luck is bad enough as is."

"There's no one else to do it," Jiraiya says, his tone somewhere between soothing and short. Like he understands how Tsunade feels but doesn't care to deal with it.

"Not my problem," Tsunade says, grabbing another bottle of sake, this time pouring herself a cup.

"What about the hospital," Asano says, hesitation etched into every sound. "Would you… Would you consider coming back and helping with the hospital?" Tsunade looks at her, looking almost curious, almost dismissive.

"Unlikely. I told them what to do. It's not my problem if they didn't follow my instructions."

"My younger brother has the mokuton. He's being taught by Uncle Yohei, but you still have the Senju library, don't you?"

"Yohei?" Tsunade says, confused.

"Yohei," Jiraiya starts, giving all the genin a hesitant look. "You know, Yoko's brother? The one that's usually busy with missions." Tsunade rolls her eyes and drinks her cup of sake, not pausing before pouring herself another one.

"Right, Yohei."

"A lot of people with chakra poisoning from the Kyuubi attack could be helped by someone with your level of expertise," Asano says, voice getting quieter towards the end. "Including myself," she finishes, barely a whisper. Tsunade sticks out a hand and Asano places one of her own into Tsunade's. Tsunade's hand lights up with chakra and Asano winces.

"How are you even still alive?" Tsunade demands, eyes unfocused.

"Senju resiliency?" Asano shrugs, "I have a lot of chakra naturally or else I'd be long dead."

"It has to mess with your ability to use chakra though," Tsunade says, and Asano winces.

"It does… but if I can't enlarge my chakra supply by a lot before I hit puberty…" Asano trails off and the light in Tsunade's hand fades and her eyes refocus.

"I've never worked on specific chakra channels before," Tsunade says, "I might not be able to do anything."

"I think you could," Sakura says. "From my research, someone with almost absolute chakra control could heal the burns in Asano's chakra channels and reform them to the right size."

"If I messed up it could paralyse or kill her," Tsunade says, "and I'd have to do it manually the way you describe it." Sakura pauses then nods and shrugs.

"But it's possible, and I'm a genin who's not even medic-qualified. You might be able to come up with something better."

"Of course I could," Tsunade snorts, swallowing another cup of sake in one go before pausing. "But I'm not becoming Hokage."

"Why not?" Naruto demands. It burns, to have someone be offered everything he's ever wanted and to watch them turn it down without a pause, seemingly without regret.

"Because I'm cursed, everything I touch breaks and everyone I love dies."

"Well, yeah," Asano says, rolling her eyes, "that's how it works. Things break. People die. That's correlation, not causation." Naruto can't even see Tsunade's fist as it flies into Asano's face and she flies backwards into a wall.

Sakura's hand lands on Tsunade's wrist a moment later, Tsunade jerks her hand back and Sakura follows involuntarily.

"Don't get into a fight you can't win," Tsunade hisses at Sakura who just up hisses back,

"Fuck you!"

"Sakura," Asano says, and pauses, "well it's not fine. Fighting is a poor solution to having your feelings hurt, but like. I knowingly provoked that, so it's not like I couldn't have predicted this outcome. Though I think my cheekbone's broken."

"Almost certainly," Jiraiya says, nodding, "it's impressive. I wasn't even the first one punched this time!"

"Don't worry," Tsunade says, sounding almost normal again, "I'm sure you'll get your chance." Shizune rises from the corner and Naruto does a quiet doubt take at how good she is at blending into the background. She goes over to Asano, talking with her quietly enough to not disturb Jiraiya and Tsunade's arguing, her hand lighting up as she presumably heals Asano's cheekbone.

"What in the Sage's name did you even do?" Tsunade says, turning to Sakura with an accusing eye. Her hand is lifted in front of her face but as far as Naruto can tell, it looks completely normal, a bit red from Sakura grabbing it but otherwise fine.

"It was Asano's technique first," Sakura says, a smug smile curling her lips. "She calls it chakra spikes. I've done some of my own work on it. It tears chakra channels and means you can't heal yourself as easily."

"To be clear!" Asano says, lifting a pointer finger, "I didn't know it would have that effect, I just knew it would make me stick."

"Better to be lucky than good," Sakura shrugs, "I knew that from reading medical books and looking at the effect it had on trees. You're lucky I can't make them last as long as Asano can or I could've torn your wrist up real bad."

"Huh," Tsunade says, looking at her wrist. "I can still heal this though, just not automatically, right?"

"Yeah," Sakura says, glancing back to see Shizune finishing healing Asano's face, "it's just the chakra channels in your wrist that are messed up, so you can't channel healing chakra through them. If you use your other hand it should be fine."

"No using experimental techniques on allies," Tsunade says, almost unthinkingly as she heals her wrist with her other hand.

"Ha! Like you have room to talk, Princess Experimental-Medical-Techniques-in-the-Field," Jiraiya guffaws.

"We didn't have the same regulations in our day," Tsunade says, "and we both saw the effects - it wasn't exactly good."

"Wait…" Naruto says, some thought making a connection that hadn't happened before. "You're his teammate?" He points to the Pervert.

"Unfortunately," Tsunade sighs.

"You know you love me," Jiraiya says, bumping her with his shoulder. Naruto doesn't miss the way Jiraiya's eyes follow the jiggling of Tsunade's boobs with her sway. Naruto looks between the two of them. She doesn't look Jiraiya's age.

"So you're like… super old then?"

"Brat!" Tsunade whacks in the head, but obviously much more gently than she'd hit Asano as it just knocks him onto his back instead of throwing him into a wall.

"She sure is," Sakura laughs, "she uses a technique to hide her age and make herself look younger. It was in one of the Genin-library books about the Legendary Sannin."

"Huh, like sexy jutsu," Naruto says, nodding thoughtfully. He'd seen how old people and kids were treated differently from younger and middle-aged adults, so he supposed it kinda made sense.

"Yeah, kinda," Asano says, scooting up between him and Sakura where she'd been before. "Can I take the tape off of Sasuke's mouth now?"

"No," Tsunade says, sending him an evil eye where he sat in the corner, brooding with tape across his mouth.

"I'm pretty sure it was an accident," Sakura says.

"And it's not like he can accidentally alert any debt collectors to your presence in here," Naruto adds, being a generous and helpful friend.

"I'm not risking it," Tsunade says, crossing her arms under her… generous chest. Naruto isn't watching the others, but he's sure he can't be the only one who feels like his eyes have just been glued to the smooth, lightly tanned skin of Tsunade's rounded breasts…

"Do you have a genjutsu on them or something," Asano says, and Naruto pulls his eyes away to see her covering her eyes with her hand, except two of her fingers are split apart so she can easily see through them.

"Doesn't even need a genjutsu," Jiraiya says, eyes still affixed on her chest. Naruto notices that Tsunade looks more smug than annoyed, even as she wallops Jiraiya again.

"Sakura, protect your innocence!" Asano laughs. Naruto turns and sees that Sakura's whole face is flushed a soft pink, only a few shades lighter than her hair, but the tips of her ears are bright red.

"Uh-" Sakura says, eyes glazed over in Tsunade's general direction.

"Mmmfmm!" Sasuke says.

Chapter 82: Tsunade and Orochimaru - Jiraiya

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

In the morning, Jiraiya stumbles out of his bed and knocks on the door to Tsunade's room. There's a pause almost worryingly long before Tsunade opens the door looking wrecked.

"What's wrong with you?" He says, knowing that Tsunade can cure her own hangovers by accident.

"Shizune made a bet with me and her prize was me not curing my own hangovers for three years. Only another 32 months to go."

"Rough," he says, pushing his way into the room to make sure Tsunade's not all packed up and ready to flee.

"So what's the deal with his 'Yohei' I've never heard of before?" Tsunade says, sitting on her bed, crossing her arms under her chest and leaning against the wall. Jiraiya lets his eyes linger for a generous moment - always good to treat himself, a chest like Tsunade's doesn't come around every day.

"Asano's older brother, Hideo has the wood release and he needed a teacher."

"Yes and," Tsunade rolls her eyes, "who's his teacher?"

"The survivor from Orochimaru's wood release experiments," Jiraiya says, surprised Tsunade even needs to ask. It's not like there's anyone else on offer. She has been away and distracted for a while though, so perhaps it's not surprising something like that would slip her mind.

"Interesting, because I was told that the survivor died about a week after the Uchiha Massacre."

"Well that's not right," Jiraiya says, resisting the urge to dismiss it as an accident. Sometimes accidents happen. Death notices get sent to the wrong people, people go missing and called dead and are found again. But Jiraiya also has a feeling like slowly strangling roots around his throat. He doesn't think it was an accident.

"Well. May the Sage damn Danzo to a thousand years of suffering," he says slowly, sitting against the wall. Shizune's bed is made, and she's not in sight, probably off getting food or something. Shizune had always been a productive, always busy sort of kid. "I don't just need you to be Hokage because I don't want it to be me, you know."

"Are you sure?" Tsunade says, "I thought there was about a 50-50 chance there was something else up."

"You remember Danzo's highly suspect super-ANBU group from the war?"

"Of course I do, Damned Pure Lands, I spent days in clan heads sessions talking about that thing."

"Yeah, cause it was suspect as hell but Sensei just kept signing off on it."

"It was effective," Tsunade allows, recalling the stacks and stacks of completed mission sheets. And those were just the ones that had records, which was likely the minority of missions Danzo's group took.

"It was officially shut down three and a half months after the Uchiha Massacre, no explanation given," Jiraiya says, and it's an awkward thing, but he has spies in Konoha for a good reason. Not that all of them know they're spies of course, but sometimes Sensei forgets to mention important things like the fact that his godkid has grown up socially isolated and unwelcome. He had to learn that from Kakashi "Basically All The Trauma" Hatake. It had to be bad for that kid to notice.

"Interesting timing," Tsunade says, tongue flicking out to lick her lips in a movement very remise of Orochimaru.

"Yeah, and then there were only a couple dozen shinobi who even semi-publicly left. Now fifty or so moved into ANBU, I'm not counting those yet, we'll get to it. A couple of dozen leave the shadows, half commit suicide in the next two years, of those, there was an unusual number of self-immolations and other destructive methods that live a limited body if one at all. All of the ones that come out are… weird one way or another."

"Sometimes shinobi who are traumatised develop specific personas to help cope, and these coping methods can spread through a group," Tsunade reasons, though she doesn't sound like she believes her own words.

"Everyone in Danzo's group got a seal that promised their silence," Jiraiya says, looking at a wall, trying not to let his upset bleed into his voice. He always has been too soft for Tsunade and Orochimaru's tastes.

"Makes sense."

"Yoko, Kakashi, and Orochimaru's survivor all have that seal - I built a detector for it. They're not the only ones. I've found dozens of shinobi with otherwise average histories with the seal."

"That's… not great."

"No. No, it's not." Danzo was given an unprecedented amount of control over the shinobi in his control - he was even allowed to recruit civilian children who were training to become shinobi so they could get specialised training. The limit on that was of course that he only got a limited number of them. Sensei was supposed to know everyone who was in those ranks. There was no way Kakashi should've been in Danzo's ranks.

"I can't get all the details, but ANBU missions have been… suspect" Of course he couldn't get all the details, ANBU missions were highly classified if they had any record at all. "But there have been more off record missions than usual, and some have gone bad in a weird way." Jiraiya goes quiet and looks off towards the blank white wall, trying to collect his thoughts. "I don't have any proof. Nothing substantial, but there's something rotten, and I can't deal with it myself."

"Why not, why me, why now?"

"Danzo's actions… There have been some…" Jiraiya looks down at his hands. They look so different from when he was young; from when he was at his peak with Tsunade at one shoulder and Orochimaru at the other facing off against Hanzo; so different from when he spent every evening studying hoping to be a better teacher to Minato than he'd been to Minato's teammates, to Nagato, Konan, and Yahiko. His hands look so different but the feeling of helplessness remains. "Danzo's not the only threat." He manages.

"I'm not going to be Hokage," Tsunade says, but they both hear the lack of heart in it. Jiraiya knows her fears. Jiraiya knows her. They know each other so much it hurts so much they can't bear to spend too long together, seeing each other's habits in each other, seeing the mark Orochimaru left on the both of them both from their time together, and from his betrayal.

"If you're just in Konoha that'll help. Without the Uchiha as a power… Well. The clans' power looks weaker without the Senju and Uchiha to back it up. It's made the Hokage's position more powerful and the counterweights weaker."

"The Uchiha aren't gone," Tsunade says, glancing towards the wall where the kids are probably still sleeping.

"They might as well be," Jiraiya says, and it's hard not to sound bitter after all the pride the clan had, for all the good they'd done, they'd never been kind to orphans like Jiraiya. He'd felt almost vindictive when he'd heard about the massacre - that's what they got for pushing their kids so far they break, after all. Then he got the message from Sensei and suddenly any cruel joy was transformed into horrified guilt on Konoha's behalf. "Sasuke seems like a decent kid, decent shinobi, but he's no genius. If you're back though, if you help back Sasuke up," he shrugs again, "maybe it'll be different. Now he's just a mad, brooding kid."

"What about their shadow clan?" Tsunade asks, probably brought to mind my Yoko's kid's presence. A weird girl - something a bit off about her that Jiraiya hasn't fully sussed out.

"What, you don't think Itachi knew about them if they existed? Sensei said they never told him of any shadow clan, but that there's a chance they were just keeping it secret out of distrust - not like there's any law about reporting bastard children."

"So they're dead, non-existent, or completely unknown? Great. I wonder how many more shadow clans have gotten started since their destruction."

"I wouldn't be surprised if even the Hyuuga were thinking of starting one," Jiraiya jokes, desperately wishing they were at an onsen or at least outside so he could distract his thoughts with the beauty of the female form. Tsunade snorts that rude sounding noise that she mostly trained herself out of as a teenager but purposefully uses around him. To make him stop hitting on her (which would never work) or because she's comfortable (an idea that feels almost painful) he doesn't know.

"Sage. Shadow clans are such a mess," Tsunade says, still smiling as she rests her head in her hands. Jiraiya agrees. When Tsunade first told him about them he thought they were disgusting and cruel and ultimately, his view of it hasn't really changed. Another example of him being too soft. Tsunade has always understood the necessity of unpleasant things.

"Yeah, what're you gonna do about yours?"

"I mean. I suppose I'll legitimise them since they've got a kid with the wood release. Not like it's much of a secret anymore so they'll need all the political power they can get so they don't get screwed over."

"The kid showed it off during the invasion, so you're running on a time limit if you want to have a chance," Jiraiya says, uncomfortably familiar with kids with rare bloodline limits disappearing into the shadows of Konoha, or worse, stolen or killed by other shinobi nations. Kiri might've been the only ones to exterminate their bloodlines, but Konoha is still considered usually kind to their bloodline clans.

"And what's with those girls. Sakura and Asano?" Tsunade says, reaching under her bed and pulling out a sake bottle and taking a sip before spitting it out. "Ack! Shizune!" She glances at his small smile and scowls. "She replaced with water." She frowns down at the bottle for a moment before seeming to give up and take another drink.

"An interesting case for a couple of reasons," Jiraiya says nodding. Tsunade knows Naruto and Sasuke's deal. She's unlikely to have heard about Asano and Sakura since it's not exactly big widespread news. "Asano killed one of her teammates after her team was captured on a mission. It turned out he was a traitor and she figured it out first, she and the traitor got separated from their jonin sensei and she took him out."

"Damn, like mother like daughter, I guess," Tsunade says, taking another swig of water.

"Yeah, it caused a quiet stir. She's pretty smart - might've graduated early except for her messed up health, you saw with her chakra channels. She probably shouldn't have been allowed to become a shinobi but she's one of the last six Senju, even unofficially. Then her sister decided to stay civilian and her oldest brother went missing in action after his team was chased and decided to split up."

"Dead?" Tsunade says, pausing since that would usually be enough to at least verbally assume killed in action, even if paperwork stayed missing in action for a few years.

"Not sure," Jiraiya says, giving half a shrug, "no body was found, but there was a fire in the area, he didn't use his emergency seal but he was genin in an intense situation and he might've died quick. But given his aunt…" Jiraiya doesn't finish but Tsunade winces anyway.

"The stain of going Missing stays with the family," she says, and they both think of Orochimaru, an orphan in blood but family in love.

"Exactly. His assessment said he wasn't particularly loyal to Konoha, was particularly smart, and didn't much care for being a shinobi. So it could go either way. He's probably dead but maybe not."

"It's a shame the Senju shadow clan is better known than other shadow clans," Tsunade says. It's not like very many people know about the Senju shadow clan, but more than Tsunade herself and the Hokage. "The people who already know are the ones I'm worried about."

"Oh here's a fun bit. Asano and Sakura? They found our old practice notebooks." Jiraiya puts his hands behind his head and rests against the wall. Tsunade looks at him confused for a moment.

"The one I worked on with Orochimaru when we were like… 14 for biology? You did a sealing one?"

"Those are the ones."

"Where even were they?"

"In the library, apparently."

"That's not where we hid them, is it?"

"Nope," Jiraiya says, relishing the confusion.

"Huh," Tsunade pauses, blinks a few times, and takes another drink, wincing as she swallows. "Ugh, water. What even was in them?"

"Well. Yours was a lot creepier. Do you remember when we were in our twenties and a bunch of new laws about research and experimenting came in?"

"Very vaguely, why?"

"Apparently Orochimaru has been pushing boundaries for a long time. Admittedly this was written before that, but I have to wonder if the laws were made in part in reaction to the work you two were doing. There's some live dissection notes, some bloodline theft ideas, and some very detailed notes on nerves in your handwriting."

"I guess I can't be that surprised," Tsunade says after a minute.

"Yeah. Sakura studied you and Orochimaru's journal. Asano studied mine, she's learning sealing now, though after the traitor in her team it was dissolved and she's been moved to T&I."

"Huh. Either of them any good at it?"

"Don't much know yet - they had the books for years and only recently realised how immensely suspicious they were and handed them over."

"Only just realised or only just decided the risks outweighed the benefits," Tsunade says, and they share a dark smile. "If they had those books for years they may very well have copies."

"Or memorised it all," Jiraiya says, "I don't know either way. I only researched Asano the night before we head out to get you. She's a bit weird to be sure, both of them are, actually."

"Really? You'd think the Uchiha and Uzumaki would be the weird ones."

"Oh, they are too. All four of them are strange. But Naruto and Sasuke are strange in predictable ways. Naruto's a lot like myself when I was young, like Minato and Kushina too. Kushina mostly, but friendly like Minato." Jiraiya doesn't let his voice get rough, though he does have to pause to swallow. Tsunade gives him an understanding look even as she herself looks sad. She and Kushina hadn't known each other well, but they'd been family in spirit if not blood.

"He seemed very spirited yesterday," Tsunade agrees, "Minato and Kushina certainly aren't the worst reference. I hope he's not too much like you."

"He doesn't much like my creeping," Jiraiya admits, feeling a bit disappointed by Naruto's disgust. "But he did make a technique called sexy jutsu, so he can't be hopeless."

"Alright, and the Uchiha?"

"Nothing special," Jiraiya says, hoping Tsunade can't smell the guilt on him. She won't learn the truth about the massacre until she's sworn into the Hokage's seat otherwise she'll run all the way to Iron. "Traumatised. Obsessed with his brother. Loner, though his team's softened that a bit. I mentioned Orochimaru attacking him and giving him the curse mark, right?" There's a pause that says no he didn't.

"What?" Tsunade says, massaging her forehead.

"Seems like he decided he needed the Sharingan before it disappeared forever. Or maybe he wants to clone the kid so he has eternal bodies, who knows these days." It's strange, how easily Jiraiya can slide into Orochimaru's mindset again, and walk himself through how Orochimaru would feel about it.

"Right. No protection. Someone going to give him the Hyuuga seal so keep his bloodline safe, or are we not going that far yet?"

"No one mentioned it yet where I've heard it," Jiraiya says, stomach turning. He hates the caged bird seal. Hates it with a venom he holds towards little else. Not even Iwa gets that much hatred from him. He knows Iwa are scum but they're also only human, only the enemy. The Hyuuga are supposed to be Konoha, are supposed to be better.

"Maybe I can get the kid to move into the Senju compound under some old law or something," Tsunade says slowly. "Only if things get desperate, of course, I don't want edgy teenager all over my space."

Jiraiya laughs and relaxes with the one last person in his world he knows completely and utterly. Maybe he doesn't trust Tsunade exactly - she left Konoha after all, a choice Jiraiya has never been able to make, no matter how terrible it is sometimes - but he knows what would make her act against him, against Konoha. So he trusts himself in his knowledge of her.

They leave for Konoha that early afternoon, Tsunade's hangover finally abating since her healing is faster even without her healing herself. Shizune returns with a backpack of supplies. The kids pile into the room giving Jiraiya suspicious glances that would hurt if he was about thirty years younger and less numb inside.

Asano seems to glue herself to Shizune, prompting conversation and listening carefully, doing a better job of socialising than any of the others can manage. She's the best socialised of the four, so it's not much of a surprise, since her family is actually present and she has siblings and friends. Naruto decides that Tsunade is the coolest thing since ice cream and starts bugging her about healing and the Hokage's position and her opinion on ramen. It helps that he's entirely unfazed by Tsunade's semi-random bouts of violence with an acceptance that Jiraiya finds unsettling. Was Naruto really treated that poorly?

Sakura watches Asano with jealous eyes and Sasuke sends hateful glares towards Tsunade's uncaring back, still sulking about his multiple hours of forced silence.

Jiraiya makes sure he walks so he can watch Tsunade's beautiful chest bounce with her stride and starts mentally composing his next masterpiece since he managed to send a late draft of his next novel out to his agent a few weeks ago. Maybe a pair of female romantic leads, in love with each other almost as much as they love the male lead…

It's a surprisingly pleasant walk, considering more than half the party is prepubescent.

Orochimaru doesn't hide his approach. He doesn't need to - there's no way for the genin to outrun him so Jiraiya and Tsunade can only get increasingly tense as the peak of noon approaches.

When he steps out of the trees, the genin are smart enough to hide behind him and Tsunade, though their attempts at whispers leave something to be desired.

"What do you want Orochimaru?" Tsunade snaps, pushing up her sleeves threateningly.

"Why so aggressive?" Orochimaru asks, but his voice is off. Jiraiya feels a grossed out chill creep down his spine. It must be a new body that hasn't yet become a complete copy of Orochimaru's body. (Seriously, that's so gross Orochimaru!)

"You killed Sensei and now I have to return to Konoha, why wouldn't I be aggressive?"

Behind him, he can hear the genin pull out weapons and try to recall and identify Orochimaru's strengths and weaknesses. It's cute. Orochimaru can definitely hear them, so it's completely useless, but it's cute.

"You don't have to return to Konoha," Orochimaru takes a step closer, and Jiraiya watches as his arms swing, lifeless, even in the new body. They're already starting to decompose. The indignity must burn at Orochimaru like nothing else. "Surely Jiraiya has told you that I have learned to use the Second Hokage's revival jutsu? You know Konoha doesn't deserve you, admittedly, perhaps I don't either - but Dan and Nawaki do."

"Don't-" Tsunade says, but it wouldn't take a lifetime of knowing her to hear how much she wants it.

"Don't listen to him," Jiraiya says, "It's not a genuine resurrection," Even with the cost the technique demands, Jiraiya had looked into seriously, even sneaking into Hiruzen-sensei's private library to study it. "It doesn't bring them back properly. They can be controlled by the maker, and their bodies will rot. Like Orochimaru's here," he glances at Orochimaru as if it will hurt any less this time than it has all the dozens of times before. "They will hunger to return to death, unable to find satisfaction in the world of the living."

"I've fixed it," Orochimaru says, smooth voice, coaxing like a demon in the night convincing you to take down the warding. "That might be all Tobirama was able to create, but I can do better. I didn't need better to defeat Sensei, of course, but I can do better."

"Can you?" Jiraiya says, arching an eyebrow at Orochimaru's own flesh suit. "Then why haven't you done it for yourself?"

"Because I don't trust anyone else to do it right. Obviously." Orochimaru rolls his eyes and decades of memories flash before Jiraiya's eyes. How little Orochimaru has changed in his betrayal.

"Jiraiya," Tsunade says, voice cracking, and when he looks at her, tears are gathered in her eyes.

"Tsunade," Jiraiya says softly, sorry. He's not sure he would even try to stop Tsunade and Orochimaru if there really was some way to bring back Nawaki and Dan. Maybe, out of responsibility, he would try, but probably not very hard. He misses both of them too! Not as much as Tsunade does, but he misses them.

He's never loved anyone the way Tsunade loves people. He and Orochimaru used to talk about it. Orochimaru has never cared about people he doesn't know. Orochimaru had spoken about how Tsunade and Jiraiya were his, so he cared what happened to them. His students and Sensei were both his, but in a different way, and that was just about it. Those were the people Orochimaru cared about. 'I'm the only one allowed to hurt my people,' Orochimaru had joked at the time. Jiraiya wonders if that had even been a joke at the time.

Jiraiya's not like that. He cares about everyone, every kid and old woman he passes in the street, he wants them to be well. He would fight for anyone, so it's probably for the best that he's Konoha and not Kiri. He wants to do the right thing, but he can't handle the sacrifices that come with it.

He loves people easily, but he's never been in love. He wants friends, he wants sex, he would love to have sex with friends, but the idea of a relationship with someone the way Tsunade and Dan were? That sounds… mildly annoying and entirely unappealing.

Tsunade is selective in her love, but she cares beyond that, to an extent. 'What's best for the people I love, what's fair for everyone else,' Tsunade had described it once. For the people she loves though… She wants them close, in reach, in sight all the time. Jiraiya knew Tsunade didn't love Konoha anymore when she left. That was her, showing that Konoha wasn't hers, it was part of everyone else. Which hurt, since Jiraiya was part of Konoha. The things she'd do for those she loved… Well, Jiraiya didn't know how far she'd go because he wasn't sure there was an end to it.

She was returning to Konoha because Yoko's daughter needed medical help; because Orochimaru's experiments had resulted in someone who was basically a relative for her… Maybe because she thought Shizune would like to return to Konoha. Jiraiya knew easily enough that she wasn't returning to Konoha for Konoha. Jiraiya wasn't sure if that would make her a better or worse Hokage, but if Jiraiya was willing to commit treason in his own mind then he would think: either way she'd be better than Sensei had managed for the best 13 years.

(Jiraiya should've taken the position of Hokage after Minato's death. He knows that now. He'd thought his spy networks would fall apart without him. Maybe they would've, but the damage still would have been less than what Sensei had done. Naruto would've grown up with him. Kakashi would've been moved out of ANBU sooner and into a close-knit jonin team - maybe even take Asuma's place as one of the Twelve Guardian Shinobi. Danzo would have been retired along with his age mates.)

Jiraiya has regrets, but now things are more broken than Jiraiya alone can fix and the situation outside of Konoha is destabilising in unpredictable ways.

"Orochimaru, no bullshit, what are the downsides," Jiraiya says, knowing Orochimaru's going to slither his way into fucking them over while getting exactly what he wants.

"I would need some of their DNA," Orochimaru says, tilting his head in that calculating way that Jiraiya's seen him refine for fifty years. "Two human sacrifices would be ideal, but I could work around that if I had to."

"I'm sure we could find two people," Jiraiya says, since it's not like Konoha or even the three of them individually are lacking in enemies. "What if they've already entered the cycle of reincarnation?"

"I don't expect they will have," Orochimaru says, "since those I've brought back seem to have been somewhat aware of the situation here since their dead - they're probably waiting for Tsunade."

"And there's no way to check?"

"To check the Pure Lands for two specific souls? No," Orochimaru dismisses, "A lot of chakra and electricity would be needed, some sealing too, but I've got that part covered." His look at Jiraiya is derisive as if Orochimaru's ability to create seals anywhere near matched Jiraiya's mastery. It didn't. Just because the seals Orochimaru could be difficult to counter didn't mean they were skilful.

"And it'd be them? It'd really be them?" Tsunade pleads, looking weakly down at her hands.

"Yes, unfortunately, the summoned soul's personality is entirely intact," Orochimaru says. Jiraiya can hear the story that he would've heard over drinks before. Now he'll never know who bothered Orochimaru so much.

Jiraiya doesn't want to kill Orochimaru. He wants to drag Orochimaru into Konoha and force him to be better. He wants to sit on top of him until he calls uncle. He wants to hate-fuck Orochimaru until they're both exhausted and then write a best-seller about it. He doesn't want to kill Orochimaru, but Orochimaru seems increasingly inclined to be the one to kill him.

"And how long do they last?" Jiraiya asks, finding his patience worn short by sorrow.

"As long as Tsunade is willing to pour chakra into their seals then their bodies will remain stable and their soul will be able to live in it. The longest test I've run for it was two weeks, but it should last indefinitely."

Part of Jiraiya - the part that dominated for years - wants to tug Orochimaru to the side and demand to see his notes, to see his seals, to take it apart and refine it with Orochimaru and Tsunade until they've perfected it. The time he can collaborate with Orochimaru willingly is past though.

"Thank you for sharing the details, Orochimaru, I'm sure Tsunade will make excellent progress on replicating it once we get back to Konoha. Unfortunately, at this time I'm going to have to arrest you for treason and bring you to Konoha for trial," Jiraiya says, not bothering to sound particularly enthusiastic. He just wants to stick his face in some twenty-something's tits and forget about this whole thing.

"Tiresome," Orochimaru hisses, his reasonable mask falling away as even Tsunade, blinded by her sorrow, knew to expect. Orochimaru makes a gesture to the trees and a young man walks from the trees. Jiraiya blinks at the kid's white hair and twin red spots on his forehead.

"A Kaguya?" Jiraiya asks - the clan had been full of bloodthirsty and talented warriors, but they had wiped themselves out years ago. What interest did Orochimaru have in one of them? The kid stomps and a wall of bones appear between the three Sannin and the kids.

A bloodline ability, well that explained Orochimaru's interest.

Luckily, Shizune is on their side, but Jiraiya doesn't really know how much of a fighter she is. Still, with six-on-one, Jiraiya wasn't particularly worried. If Shizune wasn't at least low-jonin level, Jiraiya would be shocked.

Tsunade turns, attention entirely focused on Shizune and Yoko's daughter.

"If you leave me with this fool," Orochimaru snarls at Tsunade, "I will kill him."

Tsunade hesitates.

It hurts but in an old, faded way. Tsunade doesn't love him the way she loves some kid she just met the day before, just because they share some small amount of blood. (That's not true, and that's not fair, but Jiraiya's not feeling fair. Tsunade trusts Jiraiya to look after himself in a way she doesn't trust the kid, which is fair.)

"I have a better medical centre than Konoha does now," Orochimaru says, a smirk on his dumb pretty face. "I'm in need of a new head doctor since your niece there went and killed my last one. You could bring her with her, I don't tend to put up with dead weight but she's shown herself to not be completely useless."

It's a high compliment from Orochimaru and Jiraiya feels the first edge of nervousness. If Tsunade turns against him, joins Orochimaru, betrays Konoha, Jiraiya will have to grab the genin and flee. He'll have to hope Orochimaru's not interested in finishing him off right now.

If Tsunade turns traitor, Orochimaru gets Tsunade and Yoko's daughter, and the pinkie based on her absolute loyalty, and the Uchiha since he wouldn't be strong enough to escape. Maybe, maybe, Jiraiya could save Naruto, but that's if he's lucky and Orochimaru isn't determined to finish him off.

Tsunade drops to the ground like a puppet with cut strings, her hand wrapped tight around her "cursed necklace".

Jiraiya doesn't really understand how Tsunade has failed to process the trauma of Dan and Nawaki's deaths for this long, but she has. He doesn't understand why she keeps blaming a necklace for an unfortunate coincidence.

Maybe this will help her let them go. Or maybe not.

(He's glad for the presence of Shizune and Yoko's kid, who both seem pretty committed to Konoha. Without them, Jiraiya suspects Tsunade would be a lot easier to sway.)

"I'll Kill You!" The Uchiha kid screams and Jiraiya can't help face-palming, despite the risk of losing eyesight on Orochimaru. Sasuke's already pulled on Orochimaru's seal, obviously. The kid's doing a really bad job of resisting Orochimaru's seal and the consequences are going to be ugly.

"Sasuke! Control yourself!" Yoko's kid snaps, her voice cracking.

Orochimaru smiles at him and Jiraiya sighs. He's not really sure how Orochimaru, a ninjutsu specialist, is going to fight without his arms, but he's clearly excited for the fight in a way that spells pain in Jiraiya's future.

Jiraiya takes a deep, steadying breath and spits burning oil at Orochimaru

There's an explosion of shadows from the trees near Orochimaru that seem to wrap around Orochimaru as he jumps back. And then Orochimaru's arms move, controlled by the shadow user in the trees. It only takes a couple of hand signs for Jiraiya to recognising the summoning jutsu.

Jiraiya's only fought against Manda once, since master summons aren't the sort of summon you bring in for a spar. There's a chance it's not Manda, but one of the weaker summons, but Orochimaru's barely suppressed glee would make more sense if he'd made an agreement with Manda. With only a moment to think, he summons Gamabunta.

Dust rises in the air as Gamabunta lands on the ground and surveys the scene, puffing at this pipe and slowly pulling out his massive tanto from its sheath.

"Manda, you're messing with the wrong boss," Gamabunta says, but Jiraiya knows well enough that if Gamabunta is stronger than Manda, it's close. Boss summons fights also cause a lot of damage to the surroundings, so it'd really be best if Jiraiya could get Tsuande into the fight so the two of them could scare off Orochimaru before they completely destroyed the forest around them.

Orochimaru makes a creepy hissing laugh and Jiraiya watches as Orochimaru stretches out his neck and regurgitates his sword. For a moment Jiraiya is lucky enough to wonder how Orochimaru is going to wield a sword without arms - since it's unlikely whoever is controlling Orochimaru's arms using the shadows is a kage-level swordsman. Then Orochimaru's tongue - now far larger and longer than any normal tongue - wraps around the hilt.

"Oh gross," Jiraiya says, wrinkling his nose. He's a bit offended too - Jiraiya is the toad one, and toads are the ones with long tongues, not snakes!

Orochimaru jumps towards him and the time for witty banter and distraction is passed. Jiraiya watches the way the shadows try to catch up to Orochimaru's speed, watches Orochimaru's arms move lifelessly and his sword moves to skewer him.

Jiraiya jumps, spinning to kick Orochimaru in the back and barely dodging Orochimaru's sword that shaves through the metal of his shin-guards. Orochimaru snarls and his canine teeth have grown into long fangs, dripping poison.

Without arms, Orochimaru's chest and stomach are far more vulnerable, even with his poisoned sword moving to protect it. Jiraiya summons a Rasengan to his hand and darts forward, dodging Orochimaru's blade but only managing to catch the edge of Orochimaru's clothes in the Rasengan before Orochimaru's leg moves far out of normal leg range and kicks him in the forearm hard enough Jiraiya knows the bone has cracked.

Jiraiya knows he's grinning, eyes bright and smile wide enough to be disconcerting.

Fight with Orochimaru is like nothing else. It burns like being too close to flames. The joy of fighting, of seeing Orochimaru. The pain of it being a fight instead of a spar. The burn of Orochimaru's ongoing betrayal. It's a painful, addictive feeling that lets his mind almost go blank as they both go through the motions, Jiraiya making small gains.

The shadows snap at Jiraiya's heels, like tar it slowly him and pull at him when it catches up, but the chakra is young and lacks the intensity needed to actually control Jiraiya's movements. The shadows are too widespread - Jiraiya suspects if they were more tightly controlled then he might be in a bit more trouble, but whoever's controlling them seems to be struggling with their control as it is.

The shadows stretch towards the genin's fight against the Kaguya before getting pulled back between Gamabunta and Manda who are leaping and slithering around each other, at something close to a stalemate.

A scream cuts through the air and Jiraiya turns a fraction of his attention to where the genin are fighting.

Sasuke is covered in Orochimaru's seal, his eyes are red with the Sharingan, his attention is wholly focused on the Kaguya.

Shizune has senbon prepared to throw, posed between her fingers, a smoke bomb hidden in her other hand, and a bleeding gash across her likely broken collarbone.

Sakura's hands are glowing with dense chakra, shattered bone on the ground around her, but there's blood dripping from her mouth and Jiraiya can tell she's near the end of her chakra store.

Naruto is panting but seemingly harmed, but his eyes are wide and the chakra around him is incredibly intense as he looks at the others, particularly Asano.

Asano is the one in imminent trouble. She's curled around something - likely her young bear summon since he doesn't see it elsewhere. A massive while bone, sprouting from the ground is skewering through her right thigh. Blood is near pouring from the wound where Asano has tried to move and anyone with a lick of sense can tell she's on a time limit before she bleeds out.

Still, she uncurls and Jiraiya can spot her summon's tiny muzzle is covered in blood - from biting the Kaguya - and is bleeding from a gash in his stomach where he'd been hit.

Jiraiya can feel Asano rage as she looks up - it's far too familiar to Tsunade and Yoko's dangerous wrath for him to ignore it.

Orochimaru tries to kill him again but Jiraiya dodges, reluctantly dragging his eyes from the scene of the genin's fight.

With a timer ticking in his head before Tsunade's niece bleeds out, Jiraiya can't fight with anything other than his best. No matter the collateral damage to the forest or other's opinions of him.

He summons Ma and Pa onto each shoulder and takes a breath to feel the nature chakra flow in, and through him, leaving him unchanged but empowered.

He's rarely summoned Ma and Pa these days. It takes a toll on him to channel the nature chakra and he hates the way he looks while doing it. But he can't let Orochimaru keep hurting people.

"Orochimaru," Jiraiya says, each sound feeling heavy in his throat, "surrender, or I will kill you." He knows he catches Orochimaru off guard. He doesn't want to kill Orochimaru, and Orochimaru knows it.

Jiraiya's not much of one to cry, or else he'd be letting a single manly tear roll down his cheek. Instead, he just feels sick to his stomach as his body transforms, as the nature chakra reinforces every cell in his body making him sturdier than any natural material.

Orochimaru laughs, but Jiraiya knows it's an act, and Orochimaru knows he knows.

They clash again, and Jiraiya's small advantage grows, he burns Orochimaru's dead arm and the shadows around it melt from the light of the flame licks at Orochimaru's sleeves. Oil splatters on his chest and Orochimaru is forced to use his sword to cut off his own sleeve to stop his whole outfit from catching fire.

A handful of his own sharpened hair has pierced Orochimaru's legs, in no strategic places, but still, the damage is more than Jiraiya has taken. Manda unsummons himself, damaged by his battle by Gamabunta, but only a second passes before Gamabunta unsummons himself as well with a,

"You'll have to deal with the rest of this yourself - take care of yourself Jiraiya."

But it's fine.

Tsunade is paralysed by the blood covering his niece and Shizune is trying to heal Asano who ran with part of the bone spike in her leg.

Jiraiya dispels another of Orochimaru's genjutsu, flares his chakra to disturb the shadows that are trying to break his toes.

Jiraiya's tired. Some days his backaches when he wakes up. His joints get tight and painful. He's an old man now. He should be at home surrounded by friends and their kids and grandkids. He shouldn't be here in a forest as one of his oldest friends sobs and the other rots in a strangers body.

It's not fair, but the world's never been fair, and Jiraiya will learn from Sensei's mistakes. He won't let Orochimaru go free again.

With Orochimaru's body-hopping and inhuman physiology, killing him is more difficult than it should be, but Jiraiya has known this time was coming unless a miracle happened. He pulls a blank sealing paper from a pocket and writes out the containment seal in blood.

He appears behind Orochimaru's back and reaches to place it-

Pain bursts like fireworks through his body.

His hand moves straight through the place where Orochimaru was, now only a black shadow like a gap in reality. The shadow of Orochimaru moves and his finger return to reality to grab the seal from Jiraiya's fingers. Jiraiya tries to move his arm but it doesn't move.

"Jiraiya," Ma says, and she sounds horrified.

Jiraiya looks down at the massive bone spike piercing straight through his back. It shouldn't be possible. His flesh, muscle, and bone are all strengthened by nature chakra. Even a bloodline limit bone should struggle to puncture his skin.

The world swims before him.

Orochimaru disappears, but his chakra is properly gone. He has not stayed to kill Jiraiya and Tsunade's appearance in front of him explains why.

Tsunade's eyes are covered by cloth and she flinches when she reaches out and her fingers touch the blood coating his clothes.

"Keep your eyes closed," Jiraiya coughs, spitting blood to the side, "I've had to use nature chakra." Jiraiya and Tsunade share a vanity they tease in each other, but Tsunade doesn't laugh.

"Jiraiya, we have to dispel," Pa says, "if you keep using nature chakra with this wound you'll lose control."

"Thanks for the help," Jiraiya says, and dismisses them. It's down to Tsunade now. She could've healed a wound like this a few decades ago - if she can get over her blood phobia she could do it now. If not, he'll die. No one else is good enough to heal him. It's as simple as that.

"Sakura," Jiraiya can hear Asano say, getting closer, "come watch, with my luck I'll need it."

"Shut up," Sakura snarls and Jiraiya's vision is getting blurry and dark and it hurts.

Jiraiya can feel as medical chakra is summoned to Tsunade's hand - a chakra as familiar as his own, it feels like a cool towel on a burning hot day. A relief. He's so familiar with the feeling he instinctively relaxes.

"You," Tsunade snaps to Sakura and Jiraiya watches as curiosity and affront war on her face for a moment.

"Yes?"

"Put pressure on the edge of his wound, don't let him lose any more blood," Tsunade says and Jiraiya can't help the ghost of a smile that he can feel on his face as Sakura starts following Tsunade's commands before she can fully process them. Years and years of commanding Konoha's hospital had left Tsunade with a commanding tone that it's hard to not follow.

"Why'd you have to use so much chakra, you damned idiot," Tsunade says. Jiraiya laughs.

Her eyes flutter open and for a moment, Tsunade freezes. Jiraiya can see her throat bob as she swallows. Her iris creates only a thin ring around her pupil. Jiraiya can hear the genin yelling but all he can do is stare into Tsunade's eyes.

He knows her youthful appearance is a facade, but with the blood loss making him woozy it's hard to not feel like he's staring at Tsunade from twenty-some years ago. He almost wants to warn her to train Nawaki on seal-sensing and to make sure Dan's armour doesn't have any weak points.

He feels her face in his hand before he realises he's lifted it up to her cheek. His thumb brushes against soft skin and Tsunade's eyes have started to focus correctly. Tsunade's chakra has made it through his entire chakra network, leaving him feeling cool - almost cold and for a moment, Jiraiya wonders once more, if he's going to die now.

He thinks Tsunade can read the thought in his eyes. Determination writes itself across her face even as her face goes pale and tense as she glances at the blood across him.

"Shizune," Tsunade says, voice tense - she's not loud but even so he knows her words carry. "I need you to cut the bone from behind and slowly extract it as I heal him."

Jiraiya's thoughts lose coherency as Tsunade heals him, as pain shoots through him for milliseconds before Tsunade's chakra can block his nerve receptors. He's swimming on the edge of consciousness, his eyes focusing from time to time on Tsunade's face.

"Careful," he says at some point, "if you keep your face all twisted, it'll get stuck like that someday." And then he's in the darkness, the half-nightmares of watching as Orochimaru's tongue stretches too far, as shadows try to swallow Jiraiya, as Tsunade watches helplessly as he bleeds out.

He wakes up too soon, his buzzing, lively chakra too immense to let him sleep undisturbed.

"I know it's hard to be a useful medic with a blood-phobia but you didn't have to try to cure it all by yourself in one day," Tsunade's voice is wry and Jiraiya takes a moment to remember what happened. When he carefully, carefully sits up, nothing hurts. It should be a bad sign. Usually, when a shinobi is severely injured and they wake up feeling no pain it means they've been given the good drugs or maybe they're about to die.

But Tsunade is special - always has been. Tsunade is as close to a miracle as is possible for humans to be.

There's a reason Jiraiya wants Tsunade to be Hokage, beyond all of the logical reasons. There's some part of Jiraiya that will always believe, with childish innocence, that Tsunade can fix anything. It's not fair for him to think this, it's the exact thoughts like that which made Nawaki and Dan's deaths so painful, but Jiraiya can't help it.

He situates himself against the wall and makes grabby hands for water. Once he's drained a canteen he looks around.

"I'm sorry," he says, tried. It's quiet, and with his eyes closed Jiraiya can't tell what Tsunade's doing until she pulls him into a hug tight enough it's hard to breathe.

"You're not allowed to leave me to do this Hokage stuff by myself," Tsunade says into his ear. Jiraiya laughs.

Notes:

This is a chapter I've been looking forward to for a while, but it was also very difficult to write so I'd love to hear your thoughts. From here I have two more chapters complete, but they're much shorter. After those are posted I'll be taking a bit to focus on my other fic, Red Eyes in the Dark, so updates will return to being completely irregular.

Chapter 83: Becoming Hokage - Tsunade

Chapter Text

Tsunade had hoped, desperately, and futilely, that she would go see Yoko and her cousin would tell her that everything was fine with Konoha, that Jiraiya was just paranoid, and there were plenty of people to take the position of Hokage. Then she could convince one of the Yamanaka to remove the memory of her more recent trauma from her mind since a little brain damage was acceptable for a retired drunkard more than it was for the Hokage. (Uggh, Hokage.)

That is not what happened.

Yoko looked at her as Tsunade spoke and then directed her to sit on the couch. And then Yoko had told her a story about Hokage candidates.

A genin, the grandchild of the second Hokage and brother to the best healer Konoha had ever seen. He is beloved by the people and shows great promise as a shinobi. He dies on a mission that should have been easy. But it's during a war, and sometimes things go poorly. Maybe it was an accident.

A jonin, the last of his clan except for his son. He is infamously dangerous with his sword and skilled with summons and ninjutsu. He's known for his loyalty and his protective nature. The jonin is sent on a mission where he has to choose between allowing dangerous information to reach enemy hands, and saving the lives of his teammates. When he returns without the information but with everyone alive, it's predictable. Somehow information about the mission, which should, by all rights, be classified, is leaked. A war, long in the making, finally starts, and this man gets the blame. He is scorned and hated by the people around him. He dies alone, by his own sword.

A war hero, young and shining, and the student of the student of the Third Hokage. He is sent on a mission and ends up facing a thousand enemy soldiers with barely three teams by his side. The mission shouldn't have been so dangerous. Reports had only predicted a few dozen enemy shinobi at the location. Against all odds, the war hero wins, slaughtering the other side. At any other time, he would be feared for his cruelty but the war has hardened people's hearts, and he's made the Fourth Hokage. He dies just a little over a year later, under mysterious circumstances.

A genius, one of the previous Hokage's students. They're not an emotional person, but they are a brilliant one. They're expected to become the next Hokage until their own teacher finds proof they've been experimenting on orphans- on Konoha civilians. How did so many of Konoha's civilians disappear without a trace? How was the genius' betrayal so well hidden until it was all revealed in one fell swoop? The questions are left unanswered as the genius abandons Konoha with a grudge.

A young Uchiha, able to move faster than most jonin. He's far more friendly than most of his clan and makes connections among the people, shinobi and civilian alike. He rises the ranks with impressive speed. Then, with no warning, he commits suicide by tearing out his own eyes and jumping into the Naka river.

A young Uchiha - a prodigy like none seen before. When he slaughters his clan because he was pushed too hard, too fast, it's almost predictable.

The old Hokage dies and there are only three obvious candidates. Two of the previous Hokage's students who haven't lived in Konoha in over a decade, and the war-hardened teammate of the longest-reigning Hokage. The future seems clear.

Yoko finishes and looks at Tsunade, then after a long moment, sticks out her tongue all the way. Tsunade can see dark lines of tattooed ink on the back of Yoko's tongue and Tsunade suspects knows where the seal that Danzo places on his shinobi is located.

"Thank you for speaking with me," Tsunade manages, head in her hands. Yoko pats Tsunade on the back.

"You can only do your best, Auntie," Yoko says, and Tsunade can't help but smile. It used to be only Yoko's younger sister, Yoshiko, who called her that, then one year when Yoko was about thirteen, she'd called Tsunade 'Auntie' at her sister's insistence.

They could only speak like this in private, but blood and family have always been important to her. She's so thankful for Yoko - and for Yoko's kids now. (Anyone to touches her family - has touched her family - will die.)

Tsunade leaves, a small while later. She needs to go and start setting the hospital to rights; to accept the position as Hokage; to start filing for the Sakurai family to be recognised as part of the Senju clan.

Danzo meets her at the Hokage tower, his arm and face bandaged. He looks decrepit and Tsunade has rarely been so grateful for her own vanity. Perhaps Danzo felt comfortable looking like a walking corpse, but Tsunade preferred to not.

"Ah, Tsunade," Danzo says, his cane tap, tap, tapping with every step. As a medical professional, Tsunade was almost proud of Danzo for being willing to use a cane, many shinobi resisted assistive devices for a variety of reasons, resulting in further damage. As someone who was already trying to plan Danzo's quiet disappearance, she wishes he hadn't bothered. "Welcome back to Konoha."

"Thank you, councillor," Tsunade says, pulling on many years of missions working as a diplomat to hold a pleasant tone. In her mind's eye, she can see the seal on Yoko's tongue. "I'm glad Jiraiya came to retrieve me."

"Is that so? I'm sorry to say I was against the idea since you had made your stance quite clear when you left."

"Yes, well," Tsunade gives him a gently disappointed look, "I had hoped that the work I had already done could be built upon by others." She looks towards the hospital so it's clear she's referring to the absolute disaster of a system in place there. The medics were spending far too much time trying to be gentle with patients and wasting time. The lack of low-level medics to insert IV lines, take blood, and do general health checks was causing serious medical problems to go untreated for too long. Both were fixable problems, yet she had no doubt these practices had cost lives.

"Is that all that brought you back? Would hospital director not be a better position if your only interest is in the hospital? It would be dangerous for Konoha to lose another Hokage in a few years when you get bored, after all. Someone stable and consistent would be best, I believe." Danzo has served "loyally" as councillor for more than thirty years. For such a seemingly dangerous man, he was less discrete than Tsunade was expecting. Perhaps he was going senile.

"We're both too old to be able to guarantee that, I'm afraid," Tsunade says, letting out a single polite laugh, "but I have already decided to dedicate the rest of my life to the position of Hokage in the hope there will be many candidates upon my death or perhaps even retirement."

"Ah, don't we all. I believe Hiruzen had the same wish," Danzo says, nodding, patting her arm as if reassuring her. Tsunade remembers receiving the death notice for the only survivor of Orochimaru's experiments, now undercover as Yoko's brother. Alive. She doesn't know for sure there's a connection, between Danzo and the survivor she has not yet met. Not for sure. "It soothes me to know you are taking the position seriously, I know you will do your best. Please, don't hesitate to ask for advice, I know myself, Koharu, and Homura are happy to make use of our experience."

"Thank you councillor, your support is encouraging. I can only hope this will be a smooth transition, for the sake of Konoha."

"Everything we do is for the sake of Konoha," Danzo says as if the idea is encouraging. Tsunade has killed enough fanatics in her time to suspect the zealous nature of Danzo's treason.

"Indeed," she says, thinking of assassination.

The approval to become Hokage is quick as the three top candidates are all pre-approved in case a quick transition is needed. All she has to do is agree to the position, speak with the Konoha Council and the Clan Head Council. Once she's in power she'll be sure to replace the Konoha Council members with… more trusted shinobi, but for now, she listens to their overview of the state of Konoha and their opinions on what her priorities should be.

The Clan Head Council seems more genuinely enthused by Tsunade's presence, and privately she receives more a a couple worrying comments on how it was 'about time there was a new Hokage'. She eyes everyone with equal distrust, but smiles and thanks them all the same before taking a drink from the bottle she's successfully hidden from Shizune.

Finally, (although it seems to come all too soon) she makes her first speech as Hokage and allows everyone to celebrate her ascension. The hat sits heavy on her head as she speaks. The sea of people, too massive to make out individual faces.

She doesn't want to be Hokage.

She doesn't want to be in Konoha.

She doesn't want to be responsible for the lives of all these people.

Tsunade rarely gets what she wants.

Her first day as Hokage is used to meet the staff, to get an idea of Sensei's filing system, to try and figure out what's been happening recently. She works through the sunset until the lack of alcohol is making her headache like she's gotten several concussions in a row and death seems like a merciful alternative. Maybe it's not the alcohol withdrawal but some of the sheer stupidity within the paperwork - it's hard to tell.

For the sake of her sanity, alcohol will continue to be her beverage of choice and she will not be taking any criticism, thank you very much.

She gets back to the Senju housing and remembers she meant to file an emergency D-rank to clean. Clearly, Sensei made sure it didn't return to wilderness or anything, but it's not exactly welcoming. The layer of dust and grime is bad enough on it's own, but there's also no electricity or running water, which is unacceptable when she is so desperately in need of a hot bath. (And since Jiraiya is still in town while he sorts out the Uchiha brat, the onsen is still off limits.)

She'll try and remember tomorrow. Instead, she pulls her last bottle of shochu from a scroll and downs half of it in one go before finding an inn for the night.

"Lady Hokage," the ANBU secretary says, "Shikaku Nara is here to speak with you."

"Did he say why?" Tsunade growls, everyone keeps coming to bother her for no reason, as if she'll favour them for congratulating her on this position she never wanted, not even as a stupid child.

"He said it was about the paperwork you filed yesterday."

Tsunade looks down trying to remember. She only filed a handful of things. The D-rank on the Senju housing, adoption papers for the Sakurai family into the Senju, and to get the full records for all the Konoha chunin exam finalists. His son was a finalist, wasn't he? Maybe that's it.

"Let him in," she allows waving a tired hand.

Shikaku wasn't a full generation younger than Tsunade, like Shizune was, but he had been one of the first shinobi in the longer academy system. He was the jonin commander, so it was important that she got a good idea of his character. It would be good to know, sooner rather than later, if he needed replacing as well. (Hopefully not, Konoha only had so many highly ranked shinobi, given the recent invasion and less recent Kyuubi attack.)

"Lady Hokage, thank you for making time to see me," Shikaku says, giving an unusually deep bow.

"Shikaku Nara," Tsunade says, letting herself sound stern so he'll take pause if he's wasting her time. Unfortunately, he doesn't pause. "What brings you to visit me today?"

"I saw you placed an intention to adopt form yesterday for the Sakurai family."

"I did," Tsunade says, interlacing her fingers below her chin. Tsunade knows herself well enough to know that family is a sensitive topic for her. As Hokage, it's her responsibility to protect Konoha over protecting her niece, and her niece's children. She isn't sure she's capable of that.

"I- I assume that Yoko Sakurai is the last of the Senju shadow clan along with her brother?"

"No, she has three living children, they carry it on."

"Right," Shikaku says, "I came to speak with you because Shoichi Sakurai is a first-generation Nara shadow clan member."

"Huh," Tsunade manages. The part of her that loved nothing more than working with Orochimaru notes that Hideo Sakurai is the first person to have the wood release jutsu since Hashirama, and perhaps that's not a coincidence, but now's not the time to think about that. "Have a seat."

Shikaku sits and Tsunade thinks for a moment. It would be easier if Shoichi wasn't a first generation shadow clan member, since many clans had multiple shadow clans - wasteful though it may be in Tsunade's opinion. The obvious answer is that the Nara clan should start a new shadow clan, or marry one of the Sakurai children into their clan, but shadow clans are a delicate topic. Less sensitive than bloodline limits, but not by much. Something about being reminded of one's own mortality, Tsunade assumed.

She very much wants to tell him 'that's too bad, my win, your loss,' but losing the support of three of Konoha's strongest clans (since the Akimichi and the Yamanaka would follow the Nara) would be a very unfortunate start to her reign, and give Danzo more allies than she's willing to give him.

"Feel free to refrain from answering, but do any of the Sakurai children have… explicitly Nara traits?" Tsunade says, since Hideo, at least, will become a Senju. No one could reasonably argue against that. The other children, especially if they don't have the genes for the wood release, are less valuable to the Senju clan. Thus giving Tsunade less of an excuse to claim them. Shikaku shakes his head after a long moment.

"The eldest son, Taro, was the closest. The elder daughter, Asano has a number of Nara traits, but I've not seen or heard anything that would require... urgent action." Shikaku says, likely referring to some Nara clan secret or the Nara clan shadows. Similar to the urgent action required because Hideo showed off his wood release jutsu.

"Very well," Tsunade says, allowing a sigh of relief. "Not an ideal situation to be sure, but manageable. Perhaps if one of the girls marries into the Nara, perhaps after being tested for affinity?" An arranged marriage wasn't too bad, on the scale of things. And if they were mistreated Tsunade would simply kill their abuser and anyone complicit. Nothing to be concerned about.

"That would be acceptable," Shikaku says after a pause, "the youngest isn't a shinobi, from my understanding, perhaps that might be the better choice - she can specialise in medicine or one of the other Nara specialities." After another thoughtful pause, he adds, "only if they are okay with it of course." Though Tsunade thinks the 'of course' is going too far. Shadow Clans have no political power and as such can and no doubt have been forced into marriages or worse by their connected clan.

"That would be acceptable. Would you like me to join you in speaking to the Sakurai on this?"

"No," Shikaku says, sounding almost regretful. "My relationship with Shoichi is tense, it would be unwise to connect you to that." Tsunade is thankful for this thoughtfulness since her relationship with Yoko, while weakened by years away, is still fond. She hopes that Yoko's children will be able to view her as something of an Aunt. (If they call her Great-Aunt she will have no choice but to utterly destroy them though.)

"I appreciate it, perhaps consider sending some young Nara children to join Kimiko's class, if you have any kids uninterested in the shinobi life," Tsunade offers. While it's unwise to force relationships, any decent shinobi understands how to direct a seduction between two unwitting participants… Or maybe that's just Tsunade and her team. It was a fun pastime for them during the more peaceful years and resulted in more than one happy marriage.

"I was thinking something similar. Thank you for your time, Lady Hokage, I will let you know when a new Nara Shadow Clan has been established." Shikaku bows again, slightly less deep than before, but still more than required.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Feel free to update me if the situation changes in any way." In many cases, a request by the Hokage is not a request at all, but when it comes to bloodlines or clans, even the Hokage should tread carefully. If Shikaku doesn't bring the situation to her attention again she won't be offended, though she'll certainly take note.

Shikaku exits with the polite sounds a shinobi makes to ensure they aren't confused for sneaking. Tsunade always has and always will find the naturally sneaky nature of shinobi hilarious. Her favourite is watching young shinobi children catching their parents, civilian or shinobi, off guard for the first time. It can be a dangerous incident, but that makes it no less hilarious from the outside, and rarely results in serious damage.

She's a medic, she's allowed to find it funny as long as she fixes everyone up.

Even with all of the work to do, Tsunade insists on spending at least a couple of hours at the hospital each day, doing the healing no one else is capable of. (She hoped, when she left, that people would fill the gap she left. Instead, they have deified her. They say no one else could do as she has done even though they could.)

She wants to scream. To drink until she's unconcious in a pool of vomit. Until the image of Asano's blood - Jiraiya's blood - Dan's blood - Nawaki's closed casket leaves her her. She sips her alcohol instead, forces her chakra to process the alcohol before it can effect her mental facilities in the way she prefers.

She saves ANBU from death's door; designs new management programs for a handful of chronically ill shinobi; clears an almost deadly case of sepsis from an infected wound.

She sets Shizune as head of poison and toxins, not listening to the protests of the current head. She fires anyone she sees breaking disinfection rules and puts in a mandatory C-rank mission for any shinobi of any rank with medical training or experience while the hospital is overwhelmed by the injuries from the invasion. When she has more time, she'll start personally running advanced medic-nin training. In the meantime, she makes a note to add chakra control to the shinobi academy.

The Uchiha brat demands she train her, but his chakra control is barely average. His behaviour is abhorrent, and his motivation is selfish. If she's going to take a team, or an apprentice, it needs to be someone who can be a medic on her level; who can act as an ambassador; who someday could replace her as Hokage. She turns him down and doesn't think on it for another moment.

After a little over a week in the Hokage's office, Tsunade finally has time to deal with the results of the Konoha Chunin Exams. Luckily the foreign genin in the exam are only of interest to the Intelligence department, their own Hokage or superior officer will decide their fate. In Tsunade's hands is only the Konoha genin but it's still a slog. There's the opinion of almost a dozen different jonin on each form, but Tsunade still watches the recordings of each candidate through the whole exam. While holding a genin back will hurt their feelings, advancing one too soon will hurt their lifespan.

She reads through the advice, watches fights, and finds that she is entirely out of touch with modern genin. The closest she's come in many years, besides the brief and upsettingly bloody trip back to Konoha, is Shizune, who was a responsible toddler (an effect of her family's bloodline, but still impressive). She is forced to depend more on the advice given on each form than she would prefer, particularly from their jonin-sensei and the official advice of T&I. She swears to pay more attention to normal genin skill levels in the future so she can make more independent judgments, but she doesn't have time to waste and she has already spent a too much time on it, considering all the other items demanding her attention.

In the end, she sends for all of the finalist genin to visit her office to announce the rise to chunin for Shino Aburame, Shikamaru Nara, and Hideo Sakurai.

Chapter 84: Family Secrets / Family Stains - Shikamaru

Chapter Text

Shikamaru can't help the grimace as he looks down at his new chunin vest. He's sure there are others who are delighted by the promotion - Sakurai seemed excited enough. (It was interesting… Asano's brother didn't give him the same unsettling feeling as Asano, though he couldn't describe why.)

He's excited to be given more freedom he supposes. He won't be forced to exercise at Ino's mercy anymore… hopefully. Maybe he can get a long term placement in the Capital or a temple somewhere, a nice boring position. Perhaps there are some guard towers through Fire Country that needs a guard for a few months. He'll look into it by asking some of his older cousins - why reinvent the wheel after all.

"Shikamaru," Dad says from just behind Shikamaru's shoulder, making his jerk a little in surprise."I just got the news." Shikamaru suspects that's a lie, but maybe not, Dad's been busy since the invasion. "Congratulations."

"Thanks," Shikamaru says, not bothering to force any enthusiasm into his voice.

"You'll get some more responsibilities," Dad says, no doubt understanding Shikamaru's dread from his own promotions. Shikamaru hopes he never has to do anything as important as Jonin Commander. Sakura with her obsessive awareness of Asano and any threat to her, or Ino with her boredom with T&I and desire for responsibility can have it. 'They'd both make terrible housewives,' Shikamaru thinks before correcting himself, 'Sakura would be a terrible housewife for anyone except for Asano.'

Shikamaru wants to be a housewife. Why couldn't he have been born a girl? Or at least not clan heir?

His opinion on being clan heir is not improved by the following conversation.

"Now, Shikamaru," Dad says once their evening game of Shogi is over. Shikamaru's already worried about what's coming. "I would've preferred to wait a bit longer to tell you about this. The situation has gotten a bit more complicated though recently, so it's time we talk about shadow clans."

"…Shadow clans?" Shikamaru manages. If he was someone else, perhaps he'd make a joke to try and ease the air, but he's not, so he waits for his Dad to go on.

"When Konoha was young, a whole clan got wiped out overnight. You know shinobi, they decided to take precautions against such a thing ever happening again. One of those measures became known as a 'shadow clan'. This is when the head - or heir - of the clan has illegitimate children for the sole purpose of creating a backup clan, in case the main clan is massacred or other such situations. If the shadow clan isn't needed to replace the parent clan, then the children of it usually marry into the parent clan for the most part - at least for the Nara."

"The Nara have a shadow clan?" Shikamaru can imagine other clans caring enough to have such a thing - the Yamanaka and Akimichi for sure - but it seemed a bit… annoying for the Nara clan.

"Yes. Usually starting a new one every other generation or so."

"So… do you…" Shikamaru trails off trying not to curl his lip in disgust at the idea of Dad having other children. He wasn't sure why the idea sat so poorly with him - technically seduction specialised shinobi 'cheated' (by civilian standards) on their partners often, but that didn't feel the same.

"I didn't, my father did. You would normally be expected to have at least one child with a relatively unknown female shinobi, or less ideally, female civilian, and carry things on. Unfortunately, there was recently a bit of a dilemma created by Lady Tsunade's return."

Shikamaru raises an eyebrow, curious about how the return of the last Senju could disrupt the Nara Shadow Clan.

"It seems the last of the Senju Shadow Clan married the last of my father's Shadow Clan, and Lady Tsunade is planning on adopting the whole family into the Senju."

"Right… What does that mean for the Nara?"

"Well. I haven't fully decided yet," Dad admits, rubbing at his goatee. "Technically, I suppose I should start my own shadow clan, but I really don't have the time - it's more of a young man's thing in my opinion. You're a little young on the other hand." Dad is quiet for a bit, and Shikamaru doesn't feel any need to interrupt. The idea is too mind-boggling to synthesis instantly. He wonders if he knows anyone in a shadow clan - almost certainly he has if shadow clan children train in the academy. Do they? Does he have to start a Shadow Clan?

"I'll take you to meet them," Dad says, slowly putting away the Shogi tiles. "You had Asano Sakurai in your class, didn't you?"

"Asano Sakurai is part of the Nara Shadow Clan?!"

"Yes, her father Shoichi, is my half-brother."

"Ugh," Shikamaru shoves his face in his hands and lets out a longer, even more, tortured moan. Why her? Why the creepy, not quite right, stupidly smart (oh that makes more sense now) Asano Sakurai? He supposes her older brother didn't seem too awful during the chunin exams. He vaguely remembers her having another older brother, but he couldn't remember his name. She'd mentioned a younger sister before too, but he thought she was a civilian for some reason.

"I see you have opinions on this," Dad says, sounding amused. Shikamaru looks up to Dad smiling fondly at him and has to hide his face in his hands again. Never any sympathy from his family!

"Choji thinks I have a crush on her."

"Do you?"

"No! She's… weird. She's really weird, Dad."

"In what way?" Dad asks, he's using his more serious teaching tone and Shikamaru pauses to gather his thoughts.

"She's really smart but her grammar was consistently incorrect for the first year at the academy. When she noticed me she would take longer to react to stuff. She was… very non-combative when it came to social interactions, very mature? She acts more like an older cousin than a peer." Shikamaru tries to pull up specific memories, but it was all almost normal things that had just built up over time. Telling Naruto to be serious when training to be Hokage on its own wasn't weird, but when combined with her interactions with others and dismissal of many of the kids who dropped out or failed to graduate, it felt important.

"Asano's chakra balance is heavily in favour of Yin," Dad says slowly, "that can lead to accelerated mental development. She may also have been aware of the fact that you are technically her cousin and also have authority over her as clan heir. Still, it's important to trust your instincts. Perhaps try to avoid being alone with her - she has already shown to be more willing to kill than most genin your age."

"She was one of the first to kill a rabbit during our camping trip," Shikamaru says, nodding, "she said that anyone who eats meat should be willing to kill an animal to eat, or they're a hypocrite." At the time, he's been surprised by her announcement. Looking back, it had set a fire under many of the students who wanted to prove they weren't hypocrites. Maybe that was her goal. It had also made a couple of the students cry, one had not known where meat came from and the other because they 'made friends' with the 'bunny'.

"Sometimes people with accelerated mental development are behind on their emotional development," Dad says, and Shikamaru can remember Ino talking about that, a bit. He thinks she'd been talking to Hinata about Neji then, but he supposed it might fit.

"Yeah, maybe that's it," Shikamaru says, even though it doesn't feel like that's it. She'd looked guilty sometimes when looking at Sasuke, Naruto, or even Ino, though more the former than the latter. She'd been fond of Iruka-sensei (everyone was though) but mistrustful of Mizuki-sensei even though Mizuki-sensei had given Sakura special treatment. He thinks there's more to it.

Shikamaru stands a little behind Dad on his right-hand side, trying not to fidget as Dad knocks on the door. The house is isolated, strange in comparison to the density of central Konoha or the sprawl of houses and footpaths that made up the Nara compound. Trees scattered the group and limited the line of sight, but it was comforting to be surrounded by trees - a preference many Konoha citizens shared.

"Shikaku," a man says, open the door fully, "please, come inside." He sounds like he wants nothing less than for Dad to come inside. He doesn't look like Dad at first glance, but Shikamaru keeps looking and realises it's a facade. The man's hair is short-cropped and brushed forward so his hairline isn't visible; his face cleanly shaven; his skin is a few shades darker, presumably from more time in the sun. His posture is stiff and upright - in direct contrast to the relaxed almost slouch that Dad rarely casts off.

Once Shikamaru looks past that though, the man has the same dark watchful eyes as the Nara, the same spiky hair, the same small nose with an unusually high arch. If he was wearing the same vest that Dad did, he would easily look like a Nara. Perhaps that's why he's only wearing the blue undershirt.

"Shoichi," Dad says, "I'm here to introduce my son to your family."

"Yes, Hideo told me that your son," Shikamaru wonders if Shoichi knows his name and is choosing not to say it, or has specifically not learned it, "was promoted to chunin. Congratulations."

"Thanks," Shikamaru says, slouching a little further and stuffing his hands in his pockets to ward off the intense awkwardness and tension in the room. Shoichi directs them to sit at the kitchen table before disappearing to collects everyone, leaving Shikamaru alone with Dad.

The first one to enter is a woman in a wheelchair. Even seated, Shikamaru can tell she's strong. Shinobi rarely develop bulging muscles, it's just not necessary with chakra, but the woman's shoulders are usually broad and her arms are equally well developed. Her eyes are sharp, the same bright brown colour as Asano's. Her hair is light brown, almost blonde. Her hands look weathered, even from a distance.

"Yoko," Dad greets, "this is my son, Shikamaru."

"Nice to meet you," Shikamaru says, waving a little awkwardly.

"Congratulations on your promotion," Yoko says, settling her chair against a wall and placing her hands in her lap, visibly prepared to wait without further conversation.

Out of Shikamaru's line of sight, he hears Asano say goodbye to Sakura and the front door opening and closing. Then Asano comes in, a bear in her arms that he thinks is a stuffed animal at first before realising it is very real. That explained the bear summon during the chunin exams - he'd thought it'd been the jonin's. Asano accompanied by a younger girl Shikamaru has to assume is her younger sister.

"Hi Shikamaru," Asano says, "have you met my younger sister, Kimiko?"

"No, I don't think so," Shikamaru says, thankful for what feels almost like normality. "Pleasure to meet you, Kimiko."

"Hello," Kimiko says, her hair is the colour of gold, and Shikamaru thinks maybe Senju genes are dominant over Nara genes since he's not sure he's ever seen a blonde Nara before. "You're a real Nara?"

"I am," Shikamaru says, resisting the urge to glance back at his Dad.

"Does that mean you get to learn cool stuff?" Kimiko asks, glancing between Shikamaru and his Dad.

"Some cool stuff," Shikamaru agrees, "though some of it's a drag."

"Like having to be a shinobi?" Kimiko says, sounding sympathetic.

"Well being a shinobi is a lot of responsibility, so that can be a drag sometimes, but I think I'd rather be a shinobi than anything else."

"Hmm, well did you try anything else?" Kimiko asks, now sounding judgmental, arms crossed.

"No," Shikamaru smiles, he had always known he'd be a shinobi, so he'd never wasted time looking into anything else. He didn't really mind though, it could be annoying, but he was a Nara and Nara are shinobi.

"I'm sorry," Kimiko says, just as Asano's dad returns with her brother, Hideo. Hideo's taller than Shikamaru a bit, with the same golden hair as Kimiko and bright blue eyes unlike either of his parents. Shoichi herds Asano and her siblings to sit across the kitchen table across from Shikamaru and his dad.

"So," Dad starts, looking up and down the table. "Lady Tsunade has filed to adopt the Sakurai family into the Senju clan." Asano's parents nod but neither say anything. Shikamaru can read the tension in the lines around their eyes, their totally still hands, their perfect posture. "As the Senju clan is on the verge of extinction, it of course makes sense for her to get priority over the Nara. However, it does disrupt the usual reintegration of Nara Shadow Clans. I expect Yoko will be the clan heir, followed by Hideo?"

"That's the plan," Yoko confirms with a short nod.

"Then perhaps for Asano and Kimiko, we can start looking into marriages or other bonds into the Nara clan." The look that crosses Asano's face is something like fear, something like hatred, and something like revulsion, and Shikamaru almost wants to agree.

It's one thing for families to negotiate marriages. That happens all the time, creating a bond between families. In those situations, both sides have agency though. Shikamaru has seen nothing so far that suggests that the Sakurai family can decline. He's not sure what Dad and the other Naras could do, since the Sakurai family are about to become part of the Senju clan, but he somehow doesn't doubt that there would be consequences.

Could Dad annul Shoichi's marriage - if Shadow Clan members were held to Clan laws but not given the privilege of other members of the main clan? Could he force Asano and Kimiko to be sworn to celibacy if they wouldn't marry into the Nara clan?

And then Shikamaru's stomach drops a little further. '…marriage or other bonds,' Dad had said. There two main ways someone who wasn't in the clan could join. Marriage or adoption. Was. Was Dad threatening to take Asano and Kimiko and adopt them into the Nara clan without their parents' permission? He might be able to, as a clan head. Shikamaru feels like he's going to be sick.

Somehow the lack of strict rules, unknowing how much or little power the Nara had over the Sakurai made it worse. Did anyone know where the limits were? Shikamaru could imagine that perhaps it had never been tested.

"I'm not currently planning on marrying or having children," Asano says, her voice is soft and Shikamaru recognising the coaxing tone she uses to calm people down and try to persuade them to her side when she thinks they're being unreasonable. "It is unknown if the damage caused to me by the Kyuubi would pass onto my children and I wouldn't want to take that risk without a better understanding of the risks."

"Very logical," Dad agrees and Shikamaru feels his heart thuds in his chest, pounds in his ear. He knows shinobi do things that are wrong. They kill people - kill children sometimes. They steal from the rich and the poor, they destroy valuable crops that will force people into starvation, they recruit defectors into their own army and torture their own defectors.

He knows shinobi do evil things - but not evil things like this. Not. Not to Konoha citizens, not to other loyal shinobi, not to family.

Asano opens her mouth to say something but is stopped by her mother putting her hand on Asano.

"Kimiko's only just turned ten," Yoko says, not looking away from Dad. "What would you want to agree to now?"

"Nothing too serious now, mostly today was to introduce you to Shikamaru and talk about your responsibility to the Nara before you're adopted into the Senju. If Kimiko was training to be a shinobi, I would suggest she get an apprenticeship with a Nara, allow her to learn closed clan skills. As a result, she would count as a Nara through teaching - technically her sensei would become another guardian, and she could marry further into the clan if she chose."

"I don't want to be a shinobi," Kimiko says, "I like playing sports, and reading, and mathematics."

"I already have a lot going on," Asano says, sending a tight smile to her sister before scratching her cheek thoughtfully. "But if you need something like that, I think I'm the only one who'll fit in that. You'd have to talk to T&I about that though since I'm working for them right now."

"Don't worry about it now," Dad says, and his voice is kind but it doesn't warm the chill inside of Shikamaru, "just bringing it to your attention. I don't have the time to manage it right now. Talk between yourselves, decide on your preferences. Let me know what you've decided next time." Dad stands and Shikamaru follows, feeling stiff and uncertain. He glances back at Asano and her family and sees that her parents are holding hands.

The five of them watch as Shikamaru and his Dad leave. Shikamaru feels like a monster.

That wasn't right, Shikamaru knows. What his Dad was able to do there… was wrong. Shikamaru doesn't know what to do about it though. Doesn't know what his options even are, and what the consequences would be of trying.

Chapter 85: Itachi's Attack - Sakura

Summary:

Things get worse, again

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Life in Lady Tsunade's Konoha is different, but Sakura thinks she might like it. Since just days after her inauguration, all citizens with medical training have been summoned to work in the hospital.

For civilians, there's not much in the way of tracking their skill sets, so it's based on the honour system. But they're being paid well for their time and their work is being covered by D or C rank missions at no cost. They also can't be fired during the time period. So Sakura has seen more than one civilian that she suspects to have absolutely no training, but the hospital staff under Lady Tsunade's command don't seem to mind.

Shinobi have less of a choice - their yearly assessments include skill tracking so unless someone has hidden medical training for the entirety of their career, they've been summoned. A lot of them are mothers - enough that she's heard them talking about the day-care that's been set up specifically for the children of medic-in. It's run by genin and chunin of course, and Sakura's heard variations of "it's about time," from a couple of different sources.

It's hard work, at the hospital. She's without any qualifications or any chunin or jonin who will sign for her skill. (She's not sure Kakashi-sensei would sign on her behalf even if he was conscious, but he's not, so she doesn't even have a chance.) Technically, Yoko or her own mom could do it, but it would be considered pretty bad form, and she doesn't want to get on the bad side of anyone in the hospital, she's smarter than that. Because of this, most of her time is spent following higher level medic-nin and doing their paperwork. Whenever the medic she's following for the day is free, she's given a crash-course education. Sometimes she's pulled into a semi-official lesson and given a chance to practice giving stitches or identifying an injury.

She's working about 4 hours a day, officially, since Lady Tsunade says that overworking makes someone a worse medic and that she needs 'high-quality medics' in a couple of years, more than she needs 'shit medics' now. Lady Tsunade isn't in the hospital all day every day, and even if she was, she can't keep track of everyone. So after she finishes her 4 official hours, she meets with Hinata, who has experience making healing salve, and anyone else who's willing to share what they learned. It usually ends up being a group of around a dozen, and they spend hours trading information and researching when there's a disagreement.

She loves it.

She doesn't spend as much time with Asano or the others as she would like… but this isn't going to be forever. She knows Lady Tsunade is putting a crazy amount of money into the hospital right now in a way that cannot last forever, and a lot of the overflow from the invasion has been taken care of. There are still a lot of people coming for the first time in decades because Lady Tsunade is back in Konoha and they didn't trust the hospital without her, but they don't tend to have acute conditions that require the more than double the usual number of staff that are currently working.

It's late afternoon. Sakura has finished her shift and has just past Lady Tsunade in the hallway. Lady Tsunade nodded at her, Sakura nodded back. They've seen each other a few times at Asano's house. It's weird that the Hokage is basically a family friend of some sort? She's heard talk that maybe the Sakurai's are moving closer to Lady Tsunade but it's not really been made clear to her why - though Sasuke seemed to think it was a big deal.

She's heading towards the exit when Inner speaks up. Inner has been quiet since the invasion. Speaking for the first time a few days after meeting Tsunade, but still, she's far less active than she had been before. More than that though. She's felt different. Stronger, perhaps?

("Sakura. Something is not right.")

As soon as Inner says that, Sakura realises that the sounds of the hospital are different from usual. Quieter. Tense.

Sakura has no skill as a sensor, but she suspects that if she was, she might be getting some sort of clue. (She's noticed before, how Hideo knows first when his and Asano's dad is upset. How Asano reaches out to touch her when Asano's not sure how Sakura's feeling. How some people seem to avoid Naruto a lot more, even when they don't seem to hate him. Before, people avoiding Naruto didn't make any sense except for how annoying he could be. Now, she thinks that sensors probably don't like feeling the Kyuubi's chakra, especially if they were in Konoha when it attacked.)

She looks around, a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new ones. People wearing masks and hoods - with or without forehead protectors… And then her eyes land two figures. Both wearing unflattering black robes with red clouds and conical hats. One of them is tall - really tall, and she thinks maybe she sees a glimpse of blue skin.

At first, she thinks it's racism. Blue skin is most common in Kiri which is a place that is understandably, not particularly popular in Konoha.

"Hi, can I help you two?" She asks, walking up to them. Technically, perhaps, Sakura is qualified to assist people. She's not on shift, and it really is only technically able to help at her skill level, but she's not going to let people who need help be ignored because their skin is blue.

"Sakura… Haruno…" The shorter figure, a man, says. Sakura is close enough now what when the man looks up a little, she can see under the hat. And it feels like her heart stops.
Itachi Uchiha.

Sakura knows the face. Knows it because Sasuke is terrified of the man, and Asano is too (though more discretely). Because Asano borrowed her Dad's Bingo book to point him out and to tell Sakura to run. Asano had said that Itachi Uchiha could be the most dangerous shinobi alive today, and Sakura doesn't think Asano was purposefully exaggerating.
And the man knows her name. He pauses after her name, and for a split second, Sakura very nearly punches him. Her arm twitches even before she can stop herself. She hates him. She hates him for how he hurt Sasuke - for how he hurt Konoha. She hates him for the way Sasuke changed in the academy and how Asano warns Sakura that Sasuke could be dangerous if he keeps being driven by revenge.

She hates him, but if she dies because she punched Itachi Uchiha in the stomach? Asano would kill her. (Would be disappointed in her. Would be ruined by Sakura's death. Sakura can't die - not now.)

"You're on the same team as my brother… and the Kyuubi." A shudder runs down Sakura's spine at the way he speaks. "Where are they?"

("Ha! Fuck you!" Inner shouts and Sakura barely manages to hold back.)

Sakura takes a step back and Itachi Uchiha looks her dead in the eye-

She's sitting at a table in a room with a friend. They're drinking tea - it's good. A little over-steeped, but still refreshing in the hot summer air. She can hear birds chirping outside.
"How are you doing, Sakura?" Her friend asks.

"I'm good," Sakura says, bothered by something. She's probably still unsettled from running into Itachi earlier. It's a good thing her friend was there to get Tsunade, who forced Itachi to run away.

"What's your favourite colour, Sakura?" Her friend asks, and Sakura takes another sip of her tea, frowning. Something still feels off. Inner Sakura is silent, even as Sakura mentally nudges her.

"Red," Sakura says, thinking of Asano's hair in the sun. Of her lips, bright and smiling. Of the leaves in Konoha in Autumn. It's not just that Inner Sakura is silent… it's like she's not even there, really.

The thought stops Sakura in her tracks and she stands, suddenly scared.

"Are you okay, Sakura?" Her friend asks. Sakura looks at her friend. They're great. Friendly. Reliable. She can trust them, she knows she can. Sakura frowns. Everything should be fine.

"What's the name of my crush," Sakura demands, because she's self-aware enough that Asano is the only one oblivious to her feelings. Her friend frowns.

"Sakura?" Her friend asks, confused. Sakura knows she should sit back down. She should sit down. She should sit down-

She should sit down and answer her friend's questions but where is Inner? When was the last time she heard Inner? In the hospital at some point. During her shift, definitely. She was embarrassed by Lady Tsunade nodding at her, and Inner said something then. Did she say something when she ran into Itachi? Did Itachi do something to Inner? But Lady Tsunade scared him off- Did Inner say anything after Lady Tsunade scared him off?

"What's the name of my crush," Sakura repeats. Looking at her friend. She knows them. But where does she know them from? They must be from Konoha because she doesn't know many foreigners.

"How old are you?" She asks. Immediately, she remembers. They're from the academy. They're a friend from the academy. That's how she knows she can trust them.
"Sakura, are you okay," her friend asks, looking concerned. They stand and Sakura looks at them. They have hair, and eyes, and all the other important pieces. They look completely fine. She should sit down, and answer her friend's questions.

"Sakura," her friend says, "where is Naruto Uzumaki?"

Inner is still missing. Sakura sits but her thoughts are far away. Who cares where Naruto is when Inner is missing?! Itachi! Inner was there when she ran into Itachi. Itachi said her name. Inner Sakura tried to punch him and Sakura was able to hold it back- or… no. Itachi asked something. Itachi asked-

"Where are they?" Sakura says - echoing Itachi's words from earlier in the day. It feels like only a few seconds ago… Inner had said something. Sakura had taken a step back. And then.. and then Lady Tsunade had arrived? Was it so quickly? Had Inner said anything then? Her memory feels oddly fragile.

"Where are they?" Sakura echos again, the last words she heard from the outside - then Inner had answered, and then nothing from Inner after that… What exactly had happened then? Sakura had taken a step back… and Itachi had looked her in the eye. His red, bloodshot eyes, tomoes spinning hypnotically.

"Interesting," her friend says. Sakura looks at them. She knows them. She can trust them. She can tell them anything. "So maybe you aren't just cannon fodder after all."
"Itachi Uchiha," Sakura says, looking at her friend, she knows and trusts them. And she knows that they are Itachi Uchiha, who as trapped her in a genjutsu. Both of these are true. If Inner was here, then Inner could tell her what she could trust. She pulls her hands together in a seal and pulses her chakra,

"KAI!"

She's standing in the hospital. Itachi Uchiha looking her in the eye. She nudges Inner, who nudges her right back. For a moment, Sakura wants to force Inner into the front. To hide from the world because she doesn't know what to do!

He's a dangerous shinobi - flee on sight. So she should run? Towards Lady Tsunade, she supposes. She turns, knowing that if he wants to kill her, he can, no matter what she does.

She turns knowing her only hope for survival is to be too insignificant to be worth killing. She takes step towards the door. Towards Lady Tsunade. There's a blur before her, and Itachi is in front of her. He looks her in the eye, and she looks into eyes that don't have three tomoes, but rather a spinning pinwheel. And she falls-

The moon is red. The sky is red. Sakura reaches for Inner, terrified, but Inner isn't there.

Every second is an eternity.

Inner feels as Sakura falls into the genjutsu. The illusions cannot touch Inner, not if she doesn't let it. Sometimes, she can't get in at all. This illusion is sucking her in though. Pulling at her in a way she didn't know they could. But Itachi Uchiha is in front of them, and Inner runs. She can feel, in the back of her mind, Sakura's agony. She can hear Sakura tell Itachi where Naruto and Sasuke are, as she crumbles under hours and hours of relentless torture. She feels Sakura scream until her throat gives out and Inner runs to Lady Tsunade.

"Should I-" The blue shinobi starts. Inner thinks maybe next time Sakura could just leave it alone when people are being racist because this sucks.
"No," Itachi Uchiha - worst asshole of them all, says. Inner pulls out one of Sakura's explosive kunai and throws it as he runs. Sakura is all of their impulse control, after all. She feels the explosion go off behind her as she runs through the door.

She can't feel Sakura. Or she can. But… It's bad. Sakura feels… She feels almost dead. She still feels in pain, but Inner knows the genjutsu has finished.
"TSUNADE!" Inner screams. Someone looks at her. "GET HELP," Inner yells at them, furious that they're looking at Inner like she's crazy when Itachi Uchiha is right there. well. Not right there, but just out in the hospital entrance, which is far too close. "LADY TSUNADE!" Inner yells again. She wishes Kakashi-sensei was awake. He had a really good sense of hearing. He could hear her. He would help - or at least try.

Inner can feel as Sakura - or what's left of her - pulls chakra towards her, trying to protect herself. Inner is going to run out of time if she can't do this fast. She can't- She's not meant to be here without Sakura. She's- She's-

She's running in the hospital. Looking for Lady Tsunade. She's running from Itachi Uchiha because that's what Asano would want Sakura to do. Lady Tsunade slams open a door and looks at Inner with murder in her eyes.

"What?! I'm in a surgery!"

"Itachi Uchiha!" Inner says. She's not really good at speaking to people other than Sakura. And she can feel as Sakura scrambles to pull any strength she can in towards herself - and pulls parts of Inner away in doing so. "He's looking for Sasuke and Naruto," Inner says, feeling another part of herself slip away. The woman in front of her looks behind Inner.
"Where," the woman - the person, demands.

"Where what?" Inner says, feeling herself slipping away.

There's a time of darkness. Of reformation.

Inner starts to take form again, as Sakura's chakra recovers. It's scary though. Her chakra is regrowing… but Sakura… doesn't seem to be. It's weird, then, that Inner is… for lack of a better word, back again. She tries to look at Sakura. To look at what's broken. But… She doesn't look broken, exactly. Inner's attempt to see what's wrong only shows her the hurt that Itachi Uchiha caused. Just that, over and over again. It's the repetition, Inner thinks.

Maybe, if Inner takes some of the hurt, then Sakura will be okay.

Inner doesn't want to be hurt.

But she wants Sakura to be okay.

So.

One moment at a time, Inner takes a piece from Sakura's time under Itachi Uchiha's genjutsu and pulls it into herself. She takes it and cuts out Sakura's memory of it. It hurts, even just holding the memory but Inner works with surgical precision and loving delicacy. She smooths out the gaps, massages away the confusion.
Each time Inner takes a moment of pain, Sakura starts to feel a little better.

Then - a change. A warmth. A coolness. From the depth of this strange oblivion, Inner can tell which. It soothes Sakura's pain without taking away the memories. It mends something, even as Inner can't see what - can only feel as something that was broken is repaired.

Inner is thankful for whatever- whoever is doing this.

Sakura blinks, eyes opening to a hospital ceiling. That was… bad.

("No kidding," Inner says, sounding tired and pained.)

"Sakura," a voice says. Sakura blinks and looks at the woman - Tsunade - Lady Tsunade. She blinks a few more times, not sure what to do. "Sakura, can you hear me?"

"Yes," Sakura says, "I can hear you." Lady Tsunade smiles and Sakura looks around the room. Asano is there. Her teammates are there too, but Sakura looks at Asano. "You were right, Itachi Uchiha is mean, and I don't like him." Her words feel insufficient for her feelings, but when she tries to reach for more, they evade her.

("How about: he's a monster, and I hate him more than anyone else in the universe?" Inner suggests, and Sakura agrees. That's more accurately.)

Asano smiles, but it's a sickly thing.

"Yep, Itachi Uchiha sucks," Asano says, laughter in her tone. Naruto nudges Sasuke - oh Sage! Sasuke. Itachi is Sasuke's brother! Sakura turns to him.

"Sasuke, your brother sucks." Sasuke scowls but he looks… weird.

"Yeah Sasuke, your brother sucks!" Naruto is smiling, he looks like he's about to say more, but Lady Tsunade interrupts.

"Sakura," Lady Tsunade says, "report." Sakura gives her an owlish blink of confusion.

"I was leaving the hospital, noticed something was wrong. There were two people in red robes - no black robes with red clouds. They were wearing hats, but I could see one had blue skin. I asked them if they were okay. Then Itachi - Itachi Uchiha - he said my name." Sakura frown, for a moment pain floods through her before disappearing again. Too quick for it to be anything at all. "He wanted to know where Sasuke and Naruto are. He's flee-on-sight though so I tried to run away and then he- he-" Sakura stutters as her head pounds in pain for a moment.

("He put you under a genjutsu," Inner says.)

"He put me under a genjutsu," Sakura says, frowning. "Or. A genjutsu again. He'd tried once already, but-" Her frown intensives, and Lady Tsunade echos it.
("It was different," Inner says, "time didn't pass while you were under it.")

"It was different," Sakura says. She's frowning, frowning, frowning. Her head hurts, her eyes hurt. She looks outside and the sky is blue, blue, blue. The sun is behind a tree but its light is bright and yellow. She looks back to Lady Tsunade. "I told him. I'm sorry. I told him where Sasuke and Naruto were." She turns to her teammates, "Are you two okay?"
"Yeah," Naruto says, his smile gone. "I didn't even see him. Toad-sensei was training me, and he can be pretty sneaking when he wants to be."

"Yes he can," Lady Tsunade says, "he was told to keep you away from Konoha today since the Akatsuki - the group is known for the black robe and red clouds, and are rumoured to be hunting the tailed beasts."

"Pah! They can have him!"

"They cannot!" Asano snaps before words can come out of Lady Tsunade's open mouth. "To remove the Kyuubi would kill you Naruto. Not to mention how very, very bad it would be for a group that would recruit Itachi Uchiha to have someone as powerful as the Kyuubi under their control."

"Hmm. Good point," Naruto says, rubbing his chin.

Sakura nudges Inner, and Inner nudges back and Sakura is inexplicable soothed. Then says blinks and without a thought crossing her head, turns to Sasuke and says,
"Oh yeah. Your brother wanted me to tell you that your weakness will only hurt you and those you love and that if you really cared about your family at all you would train harder so you could be worthy of them and of The Eye - capital 'T', capital 'E'."

For a moment the room is quiet. Asano's head falls into her hands. And Sakura blinks, aware of what she just said.

("Sakura," Inner says, "I don't think you're okay.")

"What I want to know, Sakura," Lady Tsunade looks at Sakura can feel herself dodge the Hokage's eyes. "How did you notice Itachi Uchiha when no one else did, and how did you come to get me when - if I'm correct - the attack he used on you should have put you in a coma instantly?" By mutual agreement, Sakura falls into their head and Inner rises to the front since Inner probably wasn't infected with mental traps or compulsions.

"That would be me," Inner says. It's easier, to be here while Sakura is conscious. Still, once this is over Inner is going to need a nice long nap.

"Who are you?" Tsunade says, her body language changing, shifting in front of Asano ever so slightly.

"I'm Inner-Sakura, you can call me Inner," Inner waves and Asano waves back, wide-eyed. After a moment, Naruto waves too. Sasuke is staring out the window looking miserable. "I'm… Well, I don't know what I am. But I'm very, very good against genjutsu." Tsunade looks amused,

"Yes, you would have to be."

"What's happening to Sakura, while you're… speaking to us?" Asano says, inching closer.

"She's in our head," Inner waves at their hand and moving Sakura's arm, she's thrown into the feeling of Itachi feeling the skill from Sakura's flesh for a vividly unpleasant moment. "I'll go through her memories and deal with any traps left by Itachi," Inner can hear the venom in her voice. "And then we'll figure out a trap for anyone who tries to enter into our head like that again… and they won't like the consequences!" There's a strange feeling and Inner looks at her clenched fist, covered in a fine sheen of visible chakra. She hadn't realised she could do that outside of Sakura's head.

"Impressive," Tsunade says.

"That's really cool," Asano nods, "are you and Sakura okay?"

"No," Inner says because once again, Sakura is all of their self-control and social instinct. "No," she tries again, "we aren't okay, but we will be. But, that was really bad, so it might be a little while."

She's caught off guard by a yawn and Tsunade kicks everyone out of the room.

Later, Sasuke comes to visit. He demands she teach him and Inner knocks him upside the head,

"Don't you think if we knew how to teach it, we would be doing that already?! Idiot!"

She has a bad feeling when he skulks off. Especially because he apologises for Itachi's attack before he goes.

"It's- it's because of me, so-" his face had flushed so red, "you don't deserve whatever he did to you. I'm sorry." He looked on the verge of tears, but when Inner laughed and said,
"Of course, Sakura didn't deserve it! But it's not your fault Itachi sucks!" His shoulders had just risen even higher - almost to his ears - and he left.

Yeah, even without Sakura's mediocre understanding of social cues, Sasuke was just spewing suspicious energy. That could be someone else's problem though, Inner was busy tearing through Sakura's memories with a fine-toothed comb and a senbon on hand to stab anything with Itachi's chakra.

Notes:

So... I've been trying to wrap this fic up for a year, and it turns out that's really hard to do in a reasonable number of words without flattening it beyond interest. I simply started too many plot threads to tie them all off smoothly at my current skill level without another, say, 100,000 words, which I refuse to do.

So, please leave a comment with the plot threads you are most curious/interested about, and I'll prioritise giving a satisfying conclusion to those.

Chapter 86: An Interrupted Escape - Sasuke

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sasuke had known since Orochimaru's attack that someone would come to steal him away from Konoha. He had known since Itachi came to reminded him of the fragility of human life and the importance of power, that he would go. He had packed a mission pack. He hid any part of his life that he didn't want whatever dumb jonin was assigned to his case to look through. He prayed for his parents, who had entered him into the Konoha shinobi academy where he'd sworn his loyalty, for understanding.

Late into the night, a day after a snake and curled up around his leg and hissed at him, there was a knock on his door.

Sasuke opened in kunai in hand and get-away bag tucked into the shoe box. He couldn't really see the figure as the Uchiha district was dark at night - only a light coloured top and the shine off of an Otokagure forehead protector.

The figure's head cocks slightly and Sasuke feels himself be judged. As if he cares what some random shinobi thinks.

"Are we going, or what?" Sasuke says, grabbing his bag and taking a pointed step towards the door.

"Well I don't see what Orochimaru-sama sees in you, but you sure are a Uchiha." The voice is young and probably male. Konoha accent too, but could be from most of the central parts of Fire Country. "Before we go you're gonna take this super cool pill, I'm gonna cover you in seals, and you're going to start developing that seal on your shoulder. It'll take a few hours, but if we don't," the voice is impressively condesending. Almost as good as Asano can manage, even without Sasuke being able to see them at all. "Well… without Orochimaru-sama's help you'll just be a waste of space."

Sasuke rolls his eyes.

And then the shinobi steps into the light of Sasuke's entry room… and he looks familiar.

He looks messed up, is Sasuke's first thought. Half of his face is missing. Not like an injury…. It's just not there. Black. Like a shadow.

But even with that strangeness, Sasuke is sure he's seen this guys face before. He's not that old, a teenager probably, maybe a younger adult. Maybe Itachi's age, or a little younger?

"You gonna stare all night, or you gonna get out of the way so we can get started?"

And then it hits Sasuke.

This is Taro.

This is the brother that Asano has mourned. Has cried over.

He's moving before he's had another thought. He doesn't even know why. Taro moves smoothly, dodging and redirecting Sasuke's punch and is moving to pin him down but-

He's alive. He's alive and he's working for Orochimaru who attacked Konoha. He might've been part of the attack that nearly killed Asano.

It's not that Sasuke cares about Asano, but he's not an idiot or completely without empathy. If this had been Shisui… if it had been Shisui who returned, seemingly from the dead… Sasuke knows his sharingan has activated by the way the world slows.

Horror washes through him as he stares at the void, pinned to Taro. The dark emptiness of shadows at midnight under a new moon. The lack of chakra. There is something keeping them contained, keeping them from consuming Taro whole, he can see the swirling chakra though he doesn't know what it means.

The darkness, the missing part of Taro's face isn't a genjutsu, or paint, or- or anything else that Sasuke might've guessed just a minute ago.

Sasuke bucks under Taro's grasp writhing to get out of view to stop seeing whatever horror was done to keep Taro live and sane under whatever that was.

And then he's being lifted by the scruff of his collar and Taro is similarly dangling - though as Taro is taller he's held higher in the air.

"Huh," an ANBU in a bird mask says, looking between the two of them. Their masked faces looks directly between the Otogakure forehead protector and Sasuke's go bag. "Your mother," the ANBU says, looking at Taro and shaking him gently, "is going to be unbearable. Unbearable, you hear me?"

The ANBU dumps them in a shared cell, cuffs keeping them to separate sides of the room.

Sasuke was pretty sure he had never felt so embarrassed in his life as he was getting carried, one handed, through T&I, where Asano works, so she'll probably know by mid-morning at the latest.

Then he gets over the embarrassment, but the room isn't exactly comfortable. The rush of leaving and the reveal of Taro's survival fades into a sort of nauseous shakiness. There's nothing in the room, and no one else but Asano's dumb brother who is also clearly awake and trying something.

Clearly Asano's brother hasn't yet learned when to give up, if he's trying to break of a Konoha holding cell in the depths of T&I. From this room, there really is no where better to go unless Asano (and really it keeps coming back to her tonight doesn't it) cries at Hokage Tsunade enough that Sasuke's not put to death and is instead put on house arrest for the next 20 years…

"What's wrong with you?" Sasuke says, looking at the way that Asano's brother is tensed and focused. He activates his sharingan a split second before the glove and sleeve on Taro's left hand flatten like his hand has disappeared, and the handcuff falls off. Above where the empty glove hangs, Sasuke can see the gross void in the shape of a hand before it slides like a oil back into the glove, filling it once more.

His other hand is still chained, and they're still in a locked room, but that's more than Sasuke would be able to manage he suppose it. (He also thinks Taro is kinda dumb for this because it's only going to make Konoha more angry and give them more information, but he's impressed at the same time.)

Sasuke gags a little. He's not a weenie like the kids at the academy who couldn't skin a rabbit, but there is something so gross about Taro's hand. It's like the real life version of those dumb horror comics Naruto stole from the adult section of the bookstore. Sasuke had only read them because Naruto thought he'd be to scared to, which he wasn't. And he hadn't been scared because they weren't real…

Taro's weird gross face and hand… they are real… and it makes Sasuke's stomach crawl.

Asano's brother is giving Sasuke a very judgmental look for someone with only half a real head (and thus, only half the real brains).

"What's wrong with me?" Asano's brother says, annoyed. "Nothing is wrong with me accept that the brat Orochimaru-sama sent me to collect was dumb enough to get us caught after attacking me for no reason. And now Konoha's going to try and execute me to disappear me into their dumb secret child army where I'll die for abandoning Otogakure or on some stupid mission. So okay, actually there's quite a lot wrong, but it's your fault."

"Not that, you idiot," Sasuke says, carefully parcelling away the idea of Konoha's 'dumb secret child army' for later. "What's wrong with your face?" Sage he feels like such an idiot asking but, "are you a zombie or something?" He can't think of anything else that fits the terrifying combination of clearly alive, but also obviously dead - because that void of space, empty of chakra, cannot be anything but dead.

Asano's brother stares at him for a long moment and then bursts out laughing. He laughs and laughs well beyond what any joke, even a funny one, would deserve.

"Yeah," he says, still giggling, "yeah I guess I'm a zombie. That might be the most concise way to put it. I died and a real bastard went and brought me back again."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. He wasn't… was Asano's brother trying to pull one over on him?

"Someone brought you back from the dead?"

"Well, from mostly dead. Nothing you can do with full dead 'cept go through their pockets for loose change."

The next day Asano's brother is whisked any to another room where he tells Sasuke he was interrogated "politely" by Hokage Tsunade and by the Nara clan head.

Sasuke, meanwhile, is left alone.

He hadn't realised death would be so slow and boring. Perhaps this is better.

He was never going to be as strong as his brother. That chance died when Kakashi fell, and now even if the Hokage wakes him… This death is easier. The spirits of the Uchiha will be restless and perhaps in their rage they will take the pound of flesh that is owed for so utterly destroying Sasuke's beloved older brother.

For the first time in many years, Sasuke feels something almost like peace.

Notes:

This chapter is entirely thanks to the AMAZING comment left by plinkyplonky 3

Chapter 87: Stuck in Konoha - Jiraiya

Summary:

Konoha was attacked. Kakashi is in a coma. Sakura was attacked by Itachi. Sasuke agreed to defect to Oto but got caught in the attempt along with Taro Sakurai, Asano's long missing (and presumed dead) brother. Things are going great!

Notes:

I'm back bitches. this fic will never die.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Jiraiya would not say he had been trying to sneak out of Konoha. Sure, he had Naruto, mouth sealed shut, tossed over his shoulder, quietly leaving with the late break of dawn.

He had permission though.

He had specifically gotten permission from Tsunade-hime to take Naruto on a training trip to help avoid the Akatsuki (and also give the kid a bit of chance to grow on his own, maybe learn some of his dad's skills even if Jiraiya couldn't bear to say Minato's name). The fact that Sasuke Uchiha tried to defect and Tsunade's great nephew who was thought dead was caught in the attempt didn't automatically mean that the permission he had gotten was now revoked!

Apparently Tsunade didn't agree with this, and was going to make her displeasure known.

He's been tied up in a metric ton of ultra expensive chakra suppressing rope which if he destroys… well Tsunade-hime probably would actually kill him. And to slide out of without destroying it… that would be easier if Tsunade-hime hadn't set Naruto on him.

"He's my team! I can't leave him! He's gotta have a good reason!"

The kid is yelling, trying to convince himself more than Jiraiya that Sasuke would never really betray Konoha… which…. Look. Jiraiya gets the feeling. He really, really does. But does the kid have to do it at Jiraiya?

"It's not my fault the kid tried to slip town," Jiraiya grumbles, knowing it's a mistake as he says it, but also unable to not say something. It's been hours since Tsunade-hime left. He is going to lose his mind and kill his beloved godson if this keeps up. Naruto predictably gawks and yells. Jiraiya tries to tune it out while he focuses on running charka through his hair and using it to loosen one of the many, many knots holding him captive.

When Tsunade slams her way back into her office with Shikaku Nara and Inoichi Yamanaka at her shoulders, Jiriaya is about half way through his knots and Naruto has taken to draping the released ropes across Jiriaya's head just to annoy him. (It's working.)

"You," Tsunade hisses venomously and Jiraiya blanches. It's never a good sign when Tsunade starts to sound like Orochimaru in a huff.

"I didn't do anything!"

"If you're gonna make me be Hokage then you are my shinobi and you work at my leisure and make my life easier. Do you hear me Jiraiya? If you make me hunt you down and waste my time on you then you will find yourself wearing this Saged-Damned hat faster than you can reverse summon yourself to your toads! Do. you. hear. me." Tsunade is leaning in so close that Jiraiya can smell the alcohol on her breath and feel the waver of her chakra that speaks of emotional turmoil.

"Aye Aye," Jiraiya says, wiggling to show he'd be bowing if he could.

"Great," Tsunade says, gaze unwavering. "Then you are going to be in charge of figuring out what in the kami-damned hells is going on with Taro Sakurai and Sasuke Uchiha."

She stands and stalks to her desk.

"I can't put Shikaku in charge because the Sakurai are a Nara shadow clan-" Jiraiya winces. He and Hiruzen-sensei agreed that the shadow clans were one of the darkest stains on Konoha's history. "Most of the other clans won't be able to be neutral about the Uchiha. And that's without including Orochimaru's part in this nonsense."

"What's there to figure out?" Jiraiya says, "The Uchiha wants power and Orochimaru offered it. With Hatake in a coma he was probably feeling ignored. Give him a slap on the wrist and put him under a powerful jonin to work him into exhaustion and he'll be fine."

"Inoichi, untie him," Tsunade says, waving a hand and moving behind her desk. "It's not the Uchiha brat that's the problem." Naruto continues squacking and Tsunade raises an eyebrow at him. Naruto quiets. "I will kick you out brat and then you'll have to figure it all out yourself."

"Taro Sakurai," Jiraiya says, pulling up as much info as he can mentally, "His mother is the rabid ANBU niece of yours… His dad is an orphan- well I suppose he's technically not-" he glances at Shikaku who looks a bit green at the idea of his father having another child. Orphans get a bad break in Konoha even now. It was worse a generation ago.

"Taro Sakurai," Tsunade says slowly, regaining Jiraiya's attention "was thought KIA. He was only labelled MIA because his body wasn't found - everyone assumed it burned up in the fire that happened near his disappearance. It was a tragedy, but the mission had been a clusterfuck, and frankly, his file suggests he was never a particularly inspired shinobi, rather lazy and unmotivated."

Jiraiya doesn't look at Shikaku.

"Given his lack of experience and skill, and how badly his teacher messed up their mission, his death wasn't hard for anyone to get their head around. For him to have survived? Now there's some questions that need to be asked. We need to know what happened. Where was he when the fire broke out? How did he avoid getting caught at the time? Where was he, all this time? Why did he stay with Orochimaru, if that is where he was? Did he get caught back in Konoha on purpose? That's all before we get to-" Tsunade pauses, "have you heard anything about his appearance?"

Jiraiya shakes his head. Shikaku steps forward.

"About half of his body appears as a sort of negative space, the outline but no shading just blackness. I have a theory, but no idea how he's not dead… if I am correct, which I hope I am not."

Tsunade waves them both off,

"Go! Figure this out. Once that's done, then we'll revisit your training trip with Naruto. I do still think it's worth doing; your network couldn't handle you spending the next couple years in village which is the only other real option to keep him safe."

Shikaku's office was a cluttered room, but not an unpleasant space, given how much work was certainly done there. A battered couch in the corner that had surely seen many late night and early afternoon naps. A handful of pictures. Plenty of shadows lurking in the corners.

"So," Jiraiya says, throwing his feet up on Shikaku's desk. If he's gonna be in Konoha longer than he wants, he's going to make it everyone else's problem. Otherwise they'd think they want to call him back for every little thing, and he'll go insane and defect and no one wants that. "What's this theory of yours that has to be shared in your private office." He makes the words sound lascivious, and Shikaku, the brat, rolls his eyes.

"It's a Nara clan secret, obviously," Shikaku says and straightens a few folders so he can avoid Jiraiya's eyes, ignoring Jiraiya's sandled feet. "You know far too much about our shadow jutsu, I'm sure, and maybe you've even seen it? Sometimes… often even, when a Nara who uses the shadow jutsu dies… well… the shadows consume them. They usually come home, if they can, though not always.

"They're dead, but in those last moments before dying, the jutsu consumes the very last of their chakra, and uses that as long as it can. It lasts longer than it should, given any metric that measure the way jutsu use chakra, but it does run out eventually, and they bleed into normal shadows until that's all that's left.

"The only thing that doesn't fit is that normally, the shadows that are left behind only stay three dimensional for moments after death before flattening, and, of course, the people who are consumed are dead."

"Right, but this Nara - sorry this kid - is by all appearances still alive?" Jiraiya says. It's a grim thing that Shikaku's told him, but nowhere near the worst and he doesn't care enough about the kid to feel the dull horror that Tsunade must have.

"And kicking," Shikaku says, almost affectionate. "Obviously it makes the Hokage's adoption of the Sakurai's rather more complicated, if my theory is correct, but," he shrugs in a what can you do way.

Jiraiya strokes his chin - an affect he picked up from Hiruzen-sensei despite never growing a beard himself - and looks away from Shikaku. The timing is impressive, if the kid had reappeared six months ago, he would've disappeared into the Nara clan with nary a word, but Tsunade has already made her welcoming of the Sakurai public.

Jiraiya tends to assume that people's motivations are straight forward, unless proven otherwise, but he makes an exception for Nara. The Nara he's known have been smart enough that their plans seem straightforward for them, but not for anyone else. That said, they also do make their plans a little too complicated, especially the younger ones who are surprised when other people don't act in the manner they consider most logical.

Taro Sakurai is moved into a friendly interrogation room at Jiraiya's request. Usually, someone who has betrayed Konoha is almost certainly going to be interrogated until there's nothing left, and executed. For genin, the case is a little different. For genin whose sensei messed up as much as Sakurai's did, they're given a little more leeway. For valuable bloodlines, new abilities, and politically sensitive people, the case is a little different - sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

Given all that, there's really no saying what will happen to Sakurai, it all depends on what happened after he split with his team, how much he can be trusted going forward, and what Tsunade is willing to tolerate.

When Jiraiya gets to the interrogation room, the one way window shows the kid the folded up on the sofa looking like a completely normal teenager… expect for the missing gaps where parts of his body should be. It's an eerie sight, but not gruesome. After a moment of watching the kid, getting used to the look of him, Jiraiya enters.

The kid looks at him, but otherwise doesn't move as Jiraiya settles onto a plush sofa and pulls a blanket onto his lap. He's not done an official, thorough interrogation like this in years and they take forever.

"So kid, you're in a bit of a bind, but things are looking pretty good for you, if you tell us what happened and we can verify it."

The kid shifts, and after a long moment nods, but doesn't say anything.

"We've got the reports from your team, from the mission you went missing, but let's start from the top for you," it's achingly slow work, these full interrogations. The goal isn't to be punishing, not exactly, but it's to catch the gaps in lies. Unfortunately people really don't have as good of memories as they think, so many "gaps" are simply people misspeaking from hours of repeating their story and answering different questions.

The Yamanaka mind-reading ability is truly a blessing, but is so restricted because of the effect it has on the Yamanaka that it's rarely used when it would be the most useful.

"I don't remember the date we got the mission," the kid starts, his voice a bit rough and a blended accent - Konoha and maybe somewhere in Rice? Jiraiya doesn't bother to make notes as the kid talks, someone less important will be doing that in the conjoined room. Instead, he focuses on the kid's body language and tone, which are always hard to get an accurate picture of from interrogation notes. He refers to his teammates affectionately, but his sensei doesn't get the same treatment - there's definitely some distain that the kid tries and fails to hide.

When they get to the kids disappearance, his voice starts to crack. From emotion, mostly, but Jiriaya stands and makes the kid a cup of tea from the little side table. Who knows if Taro knew he could get things for himself there, or if he thought it was a taunt or who knows what else. Konoha has a reputation for being the soft village and it's a lie, but only as much as no shinobi village could ever survive being soft. The shinobi of Konoha try to be soft, when they can.

"Nori-sensei told us to scatter. He took the scroll." The pauses between words stretch out as Taro gets closer to his own disappearance. "I ran, like I was told." His gaze is distant and Jiraiya knows these interrogations are traumatising all over again. Unfortunate. "I was the slowest."

Jiraiya can see in his mind's eye what that must have been like. He's been there himself, though always been saved by luck or skill, and he's known others have the same realisation. The one that says, 'you aren't good enough to survive this' and 'maybe my teammates will live' and 'I want to live'.

"I ran- I did my best. When I got to a forest. I didn't know where I was, but I thought I had to be close. Close-ish. But someone was following, and was too close. I caught the forest on fire, hoping to slow them down." Taro goes quiet for a full minute but Jiraiya waits, even as the seconds drag on. Those memories are rarely so clear and easy to put into words as interrogations want. "I wasn't good enough, but I got him. I killed him. And then I died."

Clearly he didn't. Jiraiya waits again.

"And then I woke up. And it hurt. I hurt. And there was someone above me. I was on an operating table." Taro takes slow, careful breaths. Fighting off a panic attack, Jiraiya suspects. "I had been found by a Konoha traitor, Kabuto. His team had been sent to put out of the fire and they had found me while I was still dying… I don't know how or why I was still alive in any sense by the time they arrived, but I was.

"I wasn't conscious, but Kabuto, when he was able to make to the lab where I was kept, at first, liked to talk. He killed one of his teammates, and his sensei. They figured out he was a traitor, or he thought they would. He convined the other one to help him. I was kept close to Konoha."

Another long pause. Long enough that Jiriaya considers prompting the kid but he can see the way he's mulling over something.

"I thought, for a while, that I was in Konoha. How else could Kabuto be there so often without getting caught?"

Well that's not good.

But how did he survive? Why is he missing parts of his body?

"Kabuto was a medical genius. I was almost dead, almost consumed by the shadows," Taro flexes his black-missing hand as he speaks. "Pushing it back was painful. I think Kabuto enjoyed that pain, but refused to admit that. It was always for my own good, or for the good of medical knowledge. Even when I wanted to die, even when I told him so, he always insisted he was doing it for a good reason.

"He didn't tell me what he did, or how he did it. He knew my paternal grandfather was a Nara, and he complained that I would try to 'get smart' if he shared too much. Once I wasn't at risk of dying - he stabilised it, me, somehow - I was packed and sent to the Sound village."

And then Taro went quiet, and didn't react when Jiraiya prompted him. After a while, the kid started to blink more regularly.

"The sound village is awful," Taro said eventually, with enough visceral hatred in his voice that Jiraiya almost felt they could end the investigation there. They couldn't of course, he might've heard that tone from prisoner of war survivors, but he'd heard it from traitors and liars as well.

"I acted as Kabuto's hand within the sound village when he was away, mostly doing his paperwork for his various experiments. Other stuff - missions, medical testing, training - everyone in Sound does a variety of things. It's not very organised.

"Kabuto was put on a team with my sister. She killed him. My place in Sound became both… less observed and also more precarious. Kabuto protected me as an experiment, without that protection I was able to argue for the mission to collect Sasuke, which I never would have gotten before. Kabuto knew how much I hated Sound and him. I was more vulnerable because Kabuto was important, and my sister killed him. Even if I had wanted to stay, things were building up to… Orochimaru noticed me."

Taro looked at Jiraiya like that should tell him everything he should need to know. Jiraiya doesn't know how he feels about that. He thinks maybe he knows less than Taro thinks, and he can't tell if he's grateful.

"I was there when he attacked you and… and Lady Tsunade. That was me. He was. Unhappy afterwards. The people Orochimaru notices-" Taro broke off intro another silence before finishing, "they become experiments, and rarely survive the experience long term. I came to collect Sasuke as soon I recovered from Orochimaru's disappointment."

This was far from the first time that Jiraiya had heard about Orochimaru's crimes since his defection. It always invoked a swarm of memories, both full of teamwork and friendship, as well as moments he now saw as hints towards Orochimaru's terrible future. No one on Team Hiruzen took failure well, but Orochimaru's truculence took on a more sinister tone when it was aimed at subordinates, than it had years ago when it usually meant an unusually violent spar.

"Did you intend to get caught?" Jiraiya asked, genuinely curious.

"Not consciously," Taro said hesitantly, eyes lowered and body tense. "Orochimaru might go through the effort of breaking me out, just to punish me for the failure. He'd do the same to anyone he thought I cared about, but I didn't have any friends. He might just cut his losses, or he'll get one of his spies in Konoha to convince who ever needs it to kill me."

"Alright kid," Jiraiya said, wondering, even as he spoke how much his guilt over Orochimarau shaped his decisions. "You're not going to have a comfortable few weeks, but I think there's a good chance we'll get you a good healer, a lot of therapy, and some more invasive seals, and then you'll get to go home…" He looked at the kid, and was pretty sure he knew what the kid wanted, at his core. "You'll probably never be a shinobi again," Taro was stiff but his internal chakra flexed, noticeable to Jiraiya's close attention. "You'll probably get assigned a menial desk job for a few years, but then you'll get the same choices any academy graduate who doesn't want to be a shinobi gets."

"That's okay," Taro said, and Jiraiya nodded, grimacing internally. Konoha needed shinobi, but Jiraiya was of the strong belief that reluctant shinobi were often worse than no shinobi at all. Sometimes it was fine, but they were like poorly drawn seals, fine right up until it very much was not.

He left Taro Sakurai, not bothering to check in with the T&I shinobi who would've been supervising and taking notes. His instincts were niggling at the back of his mind. Something about the Uchiha brat. Something about the trip to collect Tsunade, he thought. Something about the kid getting caught after choosing to abandon Konoha because he decked Taro.

This isn't Jiraiya refusing to admit that Orochimaru did truly betray him and Konoha. It's not.

The Uchiha brat is being held in a proper cell, more to tell him that he messed up than because he's a real threat who needs a proper cell. The kid looks bad. He's not even sitting up really, slumped against the wall and help up by friction and chains holding him.

The thing that's bothering him, Jiraiya decides, is that Minato and Kushina were both genuinely good judges of character. While Naruto doesn't seem to be the sharpest kunai in the pouch, and he can certainly be annoying, he also strikes Jiraiya as a good judge of character. Maybe it's not Naruto himself, maybe it's the Nine-Tails, he knows Mito Uzumaki said that the Nine-Tails could sense negative intent, and perhaps Naruto has developed something of that skill.

Maybe Jiraiya is going off on completely the wrong tangent, but his instincts clear that there's something about Sasuke Uchiha that he needs to know. He hasn't survived this long by ignoring that instinct.

Before he leaves T&I he schedules to interview Sasuke Uchiha. Then he goes and gets good and drunk, and watches some sexy sexy ladies at the onsen, feeling an overwhelming emptiness inside where his love for Orochimaru refuses to die completely.

He's gotta have a good reason! Naruto said, and Jiraiya hopes the kid's right.

It's late afternoon before Jiraiya manages to drag his sorry carcass into T&I. The Uchiha brat has been settled into one of the more menacing interview rooms. Apparently he shattered a drinking cup when he was handed one and was now on suicide watch, which was… curious. Suicide was almost unheard of among the Uchiha, not genuine suicide at least. Many Uchiha died sacrificing themselves for their loved ones, their teammates, or for the good of the village. But real, pointless suicide? Not so much.

The brat's eyes are red-lined and bloodshot. His fine Uchiha hair is greasy from a few days without a wash.

"So, kid," Jiraiya manages, before he has to confront the fact he has no real idea what he's looking for. The kid doesn't say anything, doesn't even really look at Jiraiya. "Naruto's heartbroken."

Sasuke does turn to look at him for a moment before coming to some internal conclusion and away again.

"He's insisting that you must have a good reason, and if you have one, you really should speak now. Personally though," Jiraiya says without pause, watching as Sasuke barely even twitches. "I think you felt ignored with your sensei out of the game and decided that your personal growth was more important than Konoha - than your friends."

At this, Sasuke lunges at Jiraiya and almost immediately pulled to a sharp stop by the length of his chains. Sasuke is snarling like a beast, and the seal on his neck is swirling even though it should be suppressed by the seals carved into his chains.

Interesting.

Moving faster than Sasuke would be able to react to, he reaches for the kid's shoulder and head and holds him in place so he can feel how the chakra of Orochimaru's seal writhes.

For a moment Jiraiya genuinely thinks he's going to vomit.

The chakra from the seal goes through the kid's chakra system, like he expected, it's not just flowing through his system, it's actively creating blockages which would disrupt Sasuke's ability to communicate, to perceive the world around him accurately, to have any sense of stability.

He had gotten the report from Hiruzen-sensei about the seal on Orochimaru's apprentice in Konoah - Anko. It had been from shortly after Minato's death and that whole time would always be something of a blur to his memory from the grief and drugs designed specifically for shinobi who wanted relief or death and didn't much care which one they ended up with. He had known the seal had changed Anko fundamentally as a person, to the agreement of everyone who had known her.

He had known, from his own tracking of Orochimaru how so many who received his seal died.

Jiraiya's muscles felt weak, though of course even as Sasuke fought against him, the kid was still a genin so it was to little effect.

No wonder so many victims of Orochimaru's seal died. It would require a strong sense of self, but also an ability to bend and not break. A willingness to be changed rather than die as who they were.

Well.

Jiraiya couldn't argue in good faith that Sasuke was responsible for his attempt to abandon Konoha anymore, regardless of the reason Sasuke thought he had done it.

Tsunade wasn't going to be happy about this. Jiraiya… he couldn't leave until he'd fixed this, as best he could. If he could help suppress Orochimaru's seal properly, then maybe Sasuke could be the teammate Naruto thought he was. If Jiraiya didn't try then he would blame himself for all the damage the kid did.

(Did Orochimaru use the seal on himself?)

Tsunade sat back in her chair, her face flushed and grey and her fists clenched tight as Jiriaya explained his conclusions, about Taro Sakurai first, and Sasuke Uchiha first. When he finished she took carefully measured breaths and he looked past her out the windows. Konoha looked good, considering it had been invaded so recently. That was a strong considering, though.

"Well," she said sounding morbidly delighted, "at least that gives me a reason to excuse the kid that won't make a terrible precedent. And it's no hardship to have more evidence of how dangerous it is to use seals on allies. The Hyuuga will be disappointed."

The disgrace of the Hyuuga caged bird seal had never bothered Tsunade as much as it disgusted Jiraiya… or rather Tsunade had her sights set higher and wider. Jiraiya had never been good at allowing small evils for the sake of an obvious bigger win. He had never been able to see the forest for the trees, as Hiruzen-sensei described it. Tsunade would gather her tools and bide her time until Konoha was strong and the Hyuuga could do nothing but agree to remove the seals entirely, or some equally overwhelming victory. Jiraiya would probably have destroyed Konoha trying to get them removed.

"Is it worth getting the sealing specialists we have working on it? Or is this a master-work?" There's something rueful there. Orochimaru hadn't found sealing as easy as he found so many other areas of shinobi skills, and Jiriaya had taken that and decided he would be a sealing master if it killed him. Orochimaru could never let Jiraiya win at anything though.

"I'm not sure yet, I'll give it a look. Don't worry about it though, I'll take care of it." He couldn't meet Tsunade's eyes as he obliquely committed to staying in Konoha for the foreseeable future. She knew how long sealing works took. It was only in stories where great masters could work up the solution to some world-ending problem in a matter of days.

The real work of sealing was the years of research long behind him, but dissembling someone else's work was only as easy as understanding another person. Perhaps Jiraiya would find it easier, because it was Orochimaru. Perhaps he would find it impossible, because it was Orochimaru.

"Naruto will be happy to hear that. As will Asano and Sakura." Tsunade sounded so happy for a moment Jiraiya hated her for healing so easily. The moment passed and he knew that was unfair and inaccurate. Still, he had comforted himself with the thought that he was managing his many issues better than either of his teammates, to have Tsunade so quickly become so…. Functional… it rankled.

"Yeah yeah," he scratched the back of his head, putting on a sheepish expression and saving his stupid little feelings for his next drinking session. "Don't go telling them on me, I'll never get any time to actually get any work done, I have deadlines coming up, you know."

Tsunade threw an empty bottle from behind her desk at him and he took it as a dismissal.

It ached to find Orochimaru's seal so comprehensible. To understand Orochimaru so completely and still be so hurt.

He was done at an almost record pace. Just a week from the three month anniversary of the disastrous end to the Chunin Exams, Jiraiya has Sasuke carefully anesthetized so he can painstakingly ink out minute characters without as much twitching or trying to keep the kid calm. Jiraiya had read the report that some other less important person had done, speaking to Sasuke's teammates to confirm that his behaviour had become more extreme and he had, in retrospect, become paranoid of his team being attacked by Orochimaru or his brother.

Of course, it's only paranoia if they aren't actually out to get you, and his teammate, Sakura, had in fact been attacked by Itachi which seemed like the last straw for an already strained mind.

Once the ink is all down and dried, he has to wait for the medic-nin to carefully bring Sasuke back to consciousness.

"Alright kid," Jiraiya says, giving him a bit of space, though he has to make an effort to avoid leaning in from impatience. He wants out of this cursed village. "I've done the work to get a beautiful, custom suppression seal for that bit of nastiness on your neck, but you have to want it. I'm not willing to override your will, like Orochimaru is, so believe me here. If you don't keep Orochimaru's seal suppressed, you will become a monster. You won't care for anyone but yourself, your teammate will kill you or die at your hand, and your memories will become corrupted until you remember nothing but your own hatred."

The kid's eyes are wide and scared and Jiraiya hopes these are the right words. He needs the kid to take this serious. He can't ever wonder or waver, he can't test the limits because this isn't the sort of seal that can be placed twice. If it fails, he'll be all the easier for Orochimaru to control.

"Do you understand?" Jiraiya asks, trying to show how deadly serious he is. "I've already told Tsunade that if she thinks the seal is failing it would be a mercy for her to put you out of your misery while your family would still recognise your soul."

Sasuke nods and Jiraiya puts his hands down the kid's chest and starts the work of pushing his chakra through such a large seal as it lights up.

Jiraiya doesn't sit in the waiting room, Naruto, and their other teammate, and Tsunade's great niece are all in their and frankly he got enough of that lovey-dovey during their training trip. He doesn't need to witness it up close what it looks like when they're told that Orochimaru's seal was changing Sasuke as a person and now that's been fixed, as long as he wills it to stay fixed.

Instead he makes sure the medic-nin take careful notes, and sits in the Hatake kids room, just down the hall. He listens, but he's not like. Obsessed, or anything. He just wants to make sure the seal worked the way he thought it would, because he's a professional.

The Uchiha kid is crying and holding onto his pink haired teammate and Jiraiya knows he made the right choice. Sitting in their supervising would have been awful.

Notes:

fun fact! Taro was never found in the original plan for this fic! His family assumed he died, and his siblings realized how much he didn't want to be a shinobi in retrospect and daydreamed that he was living a civilian life somewhere far away.

I thought that aching uncertainty of his fate was worse than any known fate, and I stand by that, but I didn't think I set it up appropriately. It felt narratively unsatisfying because how much focus he got in the early fic.