[FFML] [Naruto] Dead Garden - Chapter Four: Fractures

[Aaron Nowack]

Previous chapters available at:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7173680/1/Dead_Garden

Dead Garden
A Naruto Fanfic
By: Aaron Nowack

Chapter Four: Fractures

***********************************************************************
Disclaimer:  Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, who apparently is not
actually me.  The actual text of this story belongs to Aaron Nowack, who
apparently actually is me.  The subjective experience existing only in
your mind when you read this story belongs to you, who is not me, unless
you are me, in which case... oh, forget it.
***********************************************************************


        Kakashi arrived to Team Seven's morning meeting a few minutes
less than an hour after it was scheduled.  On one of the pages of the
pink notebook Sakura kept her personal notes in, she'd been tracking the
times of her teacher's arrival for the past week, wondering if she could
discern a pattern.  Her hypothesis for today had been that the one-eyed
man would be seventy-two minutes late.  Clearly, her theory required
adjustment.

        Sakura was seated with her back against a tree, having been
watching Naruto and Sasuke lightly spar, and after a month she was used
enough to the routine that she didn't wait for a gesture from Kakashi to
stand up and join her teammates in front of him.  After Naruto's
customary outrage at Kakashi's tardiness, the man pulled a scroll out
from on of the pouches on his armored vest, gently tossing it a few
inches in the air.  "I wasn't planning on doing a mission today, but
Hokage-sama had this one delivered," he announced as he caught the
scroll.  "So let's get it out of the way first thing so we can get to
training."

        Beside Sakura, Naruto grinned widely.  "So, what is it?" he
asked.  "Dog-walking?"  Kakashi said nothing.  "Weeding?  Or are we
lucky enough to..."  He trailed off as the cloth of Kakashi's mask
wrinkled into a clear smile.  "Yes!" Naruto exclaimed.

        "It seems," Kakashi began, his mask smoothing, "that the pet cat
of our esteemed guest, Shijimi-dono, has managed to run away.  Again."
Sasuke grunted like he'd been punched, while Naruto began to dance.
Sakura wasn't able to stop herself from giggling, though she quieted
quickly, hopefully before Sasuke noticed.  "And Shijimi-dono has
requested our services specifically.  Again.  You three know what to do.
Meet me back here in an hour."

        Naruto grabbed Sasuke's hand.  "Come on, bastard!  Let's go
fetch Tora-chan!  This is the best D-rank ever!"

        "For you maybe," Sasuke grumbled, but he didn't resist as Naruto
pulled him away.

        Sakura accepted the mission scroll from Kakashi, then trailed
after the pair of boys as they left the training ground.  She glanced
backward at their teacher, and she thought she noticed a hint of a smirk
behind Kakashi's cloth mask before he vanished in a swirl of wind-borne
leaves.  Sakura smiled herself, then sped up slightly to avoid falling
too far behind her teammates and losing them in the rush of morning
traffic.

        She caught up with them before they turned onto one of the
village's main streets, one of the few that traveled in a straight line
for more than a few hundred yards, leading straight from the main gates
to the grand arena where the Chuunin Exams were held every few years.
"Check the scroll, dead last," Sasuke ordered as she drew near.  "Maybe
that old woman finally decided to go for assassination mission instead."

        "I kind of doubt that, bastard," Naruto replied, "and I've told
you a hundred times to stop calling Sakura-chan that."

        Sasuke just grunted, and Sakura was glad he was respectful
enough of her feelings to not say the accurate response she'd overheard
a few times when the boys had the same discussion in private: "It's
true, isn't it?"

        Naruto still seemed to catch the sentiment at least as well as
Sakura did, a brief flash of anger passing over his face before he
turned to the pink-haired girl.  "I'll hold this bastard still," he
offered, "so you can hit him like he deserves."  Sakura flushed, and
Sasuke just rolled his dark eyes and sped up until he was walking a few
yards ahead of them.

        "That's... that's not necessary, Naruto-san," Sakura said,
struggling to keep her embarrassment from showing further.  Hitting
Sasuke?  Just because he'd called her something mild like 'dead last?'
Even if he wasn't, well, Sasuke, that was hardly appropriate.  Although
the thought of doing that to Ino or Ami... in some fantasy world where
the inevitable brutal retaliation didn't exist...

        "You don't have to be so formal, you know, Sakura-chan," Naruto
said as they turned off the main thoroughfare, shaking Sakura from her
musings.  "We're teammates, after all."

        Sakura swallowed at that.  It was true, she supposed, and she
knew it was stupid to hold what his mother had done against Naruto when
they had to be teammates.  He'd been nice to her over the past month;
he'd been more than nice really.  It was just... she didn't know if she
could handle calling the son of the woman who'd killed her mother
"Naruto-kun" even if he probably deserved it.  "I," Sakura began, but
she wasn't sure what she intended to say.  It would be horribly rude,
she thought, to insist on the more formal address.

        Not for the first time, Naruto seemed to be able to read her
feelings better than Sakura herself.  "I understand," he said.  A dark
look fell over his face, but it wasn't directed at her.  "Don't worry
about it, Sakura-chan.  Forget I said anything."

        Sasuke stopped outside a small, wooded park, within sight of the
walled mansion the Fire Daimyo used when he visited the Leaf Village.
He turned to face Naruto and Sakura as he waited for them to catch up.
"What's with that look?" he asked Naruto.

        "Nothing," Naruto said with a wave of his hand, a cheery smile
appearing on his face.  "Let's do this thing!" he exclaimed.

        "I... I really should check the scroll first," Sakura said.  "In
case there are any changes from last time."

        "Do it then," Sasuke said with a grunt.

        Sakura opened the scroll and scanned it quickly.  "It looks like
normal," she said.

        "All right, then," Naruto said.  "Sakura-chan and I will go wait
over at those benches like normal, then, while you do your broody
thing."

        There was utter silence for a moment.  "My... broody thing?"
Sasuke finally rumbled.

        "You know," Naruto said.  "That... thing you do, that drives all
the girls - and apparently girl cats - wild."  He looked at Sakura.
"Can you explain how that works?  Because I sure can't."

        If Sakura's face had been red earlier, it surely had to be
incandescent now.  "I... I.... I couldn't say," she managed to squeak
out.  Not that Naruto was wrong, but to try and explain it?  While
Sasuke himself was listening?

        "Thank the Sage for small mercies," Sasuke said, and then he
sighed.  "Go.  Let's get this over with."

        "Have fun brooding," Naruto said, and then he took Sakura's arm
and pulled her away.  She let him, knowing from painful experience that
Tora would go wild if she got too close.  Which probably just made the
cat more perceptive than Naruto or Sasuke, but Sakura didn't want to
dwell on that.

        Naruto plopped down on one of the benches he'd indicated
earlier, along the roadside, and Sakura sat down next to him, keeping an
eye on Sasuke as he went a little ways further into the park.  She had
to admit, this was possibly the most pleasant D-rank of them all.  "What
I said earlier," the blond boy said suddenly while they watched Sasuke
lean against a tree.  "I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have pushed you like
that."

        Sakura shifted uncomfortably.  Couldn't he just let matters lie?
"Don't... don't worry about it, Naruto-san," she told him.

        "I just... I know it can't be made up, what... what my mom did."
Naruto looked away.  "But... I just want..." he trailed off, for once
seeming as unable to find words as he often left Sakura.

        "I understand," Sakura said after a moment.

        Naruto looked at Sakura again for a few seconds, before dropping
his gaze to the ground.  "Would... would you prefer if I didn't call you
Sakura-chan?" he asked quietly.

        A month ago, Sakura would have said yes in an instant, certain
that the address was mocking.  Now, though?  She... she could give
Naruto that much, even if the familiarity did make her a little
uncomfortable.  "No," she said, "it's fine."

        Naruto gave her a smile, and then their attention was distracted
by a loud meow.  Both of them looked up to watch as a large brown cat
emerged from cover of the trees and approached Sasuke.  The dark-haired
boy pointedly ignored the animal, which let out another, slightly
plaintive-sounding meow.  "Shut up, cat," Sasuke growled out, loudly
enough that his teammates could hear from their position.

        Naruto's smile widened into a grin, and Sakura knew a faint
smile was appearing on her own face as she stared raptly at their other
teammate and their mission objective.  "I wish I had a camera," Naruto
whispered as the cat took action, rubbing itself vigorously against
Sasuke's legs.

        Sakura couldn't stop her giggle.  She agreed, though she
suspected for different reasons.  Sasuke was just too cute for words,
and the scene deserved to be immortalized and stored in a scrapbook.  Or
two.  Or three.  Besides, she suspected that with a middleman to
disguise the source, she could probably make more money selling prints
to the other girls than from these D-ranks.

        Sasuke finally gave in and squatted down, giving Tora a
perfunctory pet.  This elicited a loud, satisfied purr, and after a few
more pets the cat deigned to allow the boy to pick her up.  Keeping the
cat securely cradled in his arms - the animal had decided to escape
again once - he walked over to where his teammates were waiting, the
most adorable disgruntled expression on his face.  "Come on," he
snapped.

        While Sakura - barely - managed to keep her face smooth as she
stood, Naruto didn't even try, laughing openly as he reached over and
scratched Tora behind the ears.  "Are you really sure the Uchiha aren't
the evil opposites of the Inuzuka, Sasuke?" he asked.

        "Shut up, Naruto," he growled, and then he stalked out of the
park, Tora giving Sakura a warning hiss as they passed her.  Naruto gave
her another grin, and then they followed Sasuke the short distance to
the Fire Daimyo's mansion.

        It took about a half-hour to deliver the cat to her owner,
report the mission success, and make their way back to the Third
Training Ground.  This got them there more or less on time for Kakashi's
scheduled meeting, or - more realistically - at least an hour early.
Sasuke and Naruto settled into some more sparring, and while she
demurred at first, Naruto eventually managed to draw Sakura into the
practice as well.  He was correcting Sakura on a taijutsu stance when
Kakashi finally arrived, a book in one hand; it took Sakura only a
glance at the cover to recognize it as The Gutsy Shinobi And The Ghosts
of Bird Country.

        Kakashi pointed with the volume at a stand of trees.  "Today,"
he said without any introduction, "you're going to learn how to climb
trees like a ninja."

***********************************************************************


        For as long as Sakura could remember, the small training room in
the back of her house had stayed unused, and she usually only entered it
on the rare occasions that her father had decided it was time to clean
it.  It wasn't hard for her to guess why he was disinclined to use it.
A personal dojo was the kind of addition to the house that was more
likely to be demanded by a jounin than a genin, and there was a set of
wooden bokken racked neatly by the door even though her father didn't
usually carry a sword.  It had been her mother's room, she knew without
her father saying.

        Yet, in the past month, since Sakura had become a genin and her
father had started talking about participating in the upcoming Chuunin
Exams, that had changed.  Her mother's things had been packed away and
relocated to the attic, the old and worn floor pads had been replaced,
and a visit to the training room had become part of her father's morning
routine, one that he dragged Sakura into when he could.

        This morning, they were working on kunai melee.  They didn't
spar freely, the way Naruto and Sasuke liked to spar, a desire for which
Kakashi usually indulged them.  Sakura and her father might both be
genin, but she was a twelve-year-old girl fresh out of the academy, and
Haruno Takeru was a man with decades of experience.  Overpowering his
daughter, if he wished, would be a matter of moments.

        "Are you sure you'll be okay while I'm gone?" her father asked
Sakura, for what seemed like the hundredth time, as she struggled to
block each of the strikes he made with his blunt practice blade.  Today,
she wasn't counter-attacking or dodging.  Only blocks with her own
weapon were allowed.

        "Yes, Father," Sakura answered.  It was far from the first time
he'd asked the question, and she felt a spark of irritation which she
pushed aside with practiced ease.  The next blow would be from above,
she thought.

        Her father struck low, almost crouching down to slash at
Sakura's feet, and she had to dance backward to avoid the strike.  He
frowned.  "You can't let yourself expect a pattern, Sakura," he said
seriously.

        "Yes, Father," Sakura said again.  Only fear that inattention
would prove dangerous kept her eyes from dropping to the floor in
embarrassment.

        Before her father could launch another attack, a loud knock came
from their front door, and he relaxed his stance.  "That would be
Tsubaki-chan," he said.  "Don't you usually have to go to your team
before she comes by for our meeting?"

        "We're meeting a little later than usual today," Sakura reminded
him as she started quickly cleanup and put the practice weapons away.
"At the Tower."

        "We're meeting Kabuto-kun and our squad leader for this mission
there too.  You can walk with us."  Her father went to let his teammate
in.  Sakura finished her task before following.

        When she reached the front room of their house, her father was
talking quietly with a tall, black-haired woman who Sakura only half-
recognized.  At the sound of Sakura's approach, her father turned back
to her.  "Ah, Sakura-chan, you remember Katou Tsubaki-san, of course."

        Sakura almost froze at the full name, then forced herself to
give a polite bow.  "Hello, Katou-san."

        The woman looked at Sakura, and something flashed in her dark
eyes that made Sakura want to back away.  Then, as quickly as it came,
it was gone, and the woman smiled faintly.  "Good morning, Sakura-chan."

        Sakura wanted to kick herself.  How had she not realized?  Of
course the "Tsubaki-chan" who her father was taking the Chuunin Exams
with would be the same Tsubaki who was her teacher, and his friend,
Mizuki's wife.  She almost stammered out an apology, but she wasn't sure
what she could actually apologize to the woman for, not without spilling
her secret, or sharing things about that night the Hokage had warned her
not to speak of.

        The woman seemed to read Sakura's mind well enough, despite her
silence.  "Don't blame yourself, Sakura-chan," she said.  "Mizuki
wouldn't want that."

        "Thank you," Sakura's father said.

        The corner of Tsubaki's mouth twitched into an almost-smile that
seemed far more genuine than the actual smile she had directed at Sakura
a moment ago.  "I didn't say it for you, Takeru."

        "Of course," her father replied.

        Sakura didn't know what to say, but neither adult pressed her
for an answer, and they let her hang back a small ways as she trailed
them out of the house.  She wasn't far enough away to avoid overhearing
their quiet conversation, though.

        "Have you heard anything more?" her father asked.

        Tsubaki shrugged.  "No more," she said, her voice tight and
controlled.  "Just the letter once a week, but no real news in those."

        "At least they are allowing him communication."  Her father
hesitated, then added, "It's a good sign."

        "I don't know how much of my letters get back to him," Tsubaki
replied, anger breaking through a little.  "Or really... the letters are
in his handwriting, reference things only we would know, but ANBU..."

        Sakura's stomach dropped suddenly.  She meant... Mizuki might be
dead.  Her teacher might be dead, secretly executed because he had let
himself be captured for her sake.  She knew intellectually - the Hokage
himself had made a point of telling her that night - that Mizuki had
made his own choices, that if he'd done the right thing in the first
place, as he'd taught them in the academy, he would have been in no
danger.  It still felt like it was her fault.

        "There's no reason for a fragile deception like that," her
father said firmly.  "You know that, Tsubaki-chan."

        "Right," the woman said, taking a deep breath and visibly
calming.  "You're right."

        A few moments later, Yakushi Kabuto joined them, appearing out
from a side street with a cheery wave.  "Good morning, Takeru-san,
Tsubaki-san."  He smiled down at Sakura.  "Sakura-chan."

        "Kabuto-kun," her father replied.

        "Good morning, Kabuto-san," Sakura said a moment later.  Tsubaki
just nodded at her younger teammate.

        "Are we gaining a fourth teammate?" the silver-haired boy asked
lightly.

        "It's a little early for Sakura-chan to take the exams, don't
you think?" Sakura's father replied.  "But if you fail a few more times,
maybe you'll get to team with her soon enough."

        Kabuto placed a hand over his heart in mock pain.  "You realize
that I am the youngest person on this team."

        "This is only Takeru-kun's second try," Tsubaki said dryly, "and
my third.  How many did you say you were up to?"

        Kabuto raised a hand to adjust his glasses, but Sakura saw him
grinning behind it.  "True enough," he said.  He turned to Sakura.  "So
why do we have the pleasure of your company this morning, Sakura-chan?"

        "I'm meeting my team at the Tower this morning," Sakura
explained.

        "Ah.  And how are you getting along with them?  The boys giving
you any trouble?" Kabuto asked.

        "No, no trouble, Kabuto-san," Sakura said.

        Kabuto smiled again.  "I'm glad to hear that.  What's Hatake-
sama been teaching you?"

        "Tree-walking," Sakura said, not able to stop herself from
grimacing.  Naruto had taken to it like a natural, reaching the top of
his tree by the end of the first session, and the next morning a
slightly-tired Sasuke had matched his feat.  Sakura, of course, hadn't
found it so easy, taking a few more days to get to the top, and even now
a distraction easily made her lose her footing.  Worse, now Kakashi had
them using the technique for endurance training, running up and down the
tree trunks until they literally dropped.

        "That bad, huh?" Kabuto asked, and Sakura knew her thoughts must
have shown on her face.  "If you're still having trouble when we get
back, I can give you some chakra control tips."

        "Thank you, Kabuto-san," Sakura said, and then they turned a
corner and the Hokage Tower came into view.  Like always this time of
day, it was busy with ninja coming and going.  Her father led his team
through the throng toward a bench outside the entrance, and, not seeing
her team, Sakura kept trailing after.

        Waiting there was a brown-haired woman wearing a chuunin's
armored jacket, and Sakura didn't need the tattoos on her face to know
she was an Inuzuka.  Three gray dogs lounged around her feet, and as
their mistress stood they also stirred.  "Haruno Takeru, Katou Tsubaki,
and Yakushi Kabuto?" she asked.

        "Yes, sir," Tsubaki answered quickly.

        The woman nodded, and her dogs left her, walking up to sniff the
genin.  One of them approached Sakura, and she backed away nervously.
"Your daughter?" the Inuzuka asked her father.

        "Yes," the man said, his voice tight.  Sakura's eyes didn't
leave the dog, which made a soft noise she couldn't interpret.  "Is
there a problem, sir?" she heard her father ask.

        The dog suddenly leapt forward.  Sakura raised her arms to guard
herself, only to find them covered in wet slobber.  She almost fell over
from surprise, and then she did fall over as the dog overpowered her and
started to lick her face.

        The Inuzuka woman laughed.  "I suppose not," she said.  "Heel,
boy.  Don't scare the poor girl."  The dog backed away, and the woman
smiled at Sakura as she rose.  "Sorry," she said.  "He likes meeting
kids.  Try scratching beneath his chin, and you'll have a friend for
life.  Don't worry, he won't bite a Leaf ninja." Sakura cautiously
followed the suggestion, and quickly the other two dogs crowded around
her, demanding attention.  While she was distracted by the animals, the
Inuzuka turned back to her father's team.

        "I've been assigned to be your squad leader for this mission,"
she said.  "My name is -"

        "Inuzuka Hana, right?" Kabuto asked.

        The woman took a moment to answer.  "Do I know... wait."  She
snapped her fingers suddenly.  "That's where I knew that name from.
Yakushi Kabuto, Migaki-sensei's Applied Toxicology lectures, two years
ago.  You sat next to Hyuuga."

        Kabuto bowed.  "Guilty as charged."

        "All right, then.  Like he said, I'm Inuzuka Hana.  My partners
are the Haimaru brothers.  Don't even bother trying to keep them
separate in your head; they'll just get offended when you mess up which
is which."  One of the dogs let out a huff that Sakura interpreted as
amused.  "We're scheduled to meet with the client in an half-hour."

        "Is there a reason we're being assigned a chuunin squad leader?"
Sakura's father asked.  "That's not normal for veteran genin on a low-
risk C-rank like we asked for."

        "Good question, Haruno," Hana said.  "We're being hired to guard
an almost-completed construction project, but the client claims there's
no specific threat and he wants extra security just in case.  Based on
that and other intelligence, we're expecting opposition.  Worst-case
scenario is estimated at one or two missing ninja, low chuunin quality
at maximum."

        "Why not just turn down the mission if the client is lying to
us?" Tsubaki asked.

        Hana just shrugged.  "That's Hokage-sama's call.  Politics,
probably."  She paused.  "Unless you've got any urgent questions, we
should head on up so we can go over the mission with Hokage-sama before
the client arrives."  One of the Haimaru brothers gave Sakura a parting
lick, and then the dogs retreated to their mistress's side.  After
saying good-bye to Sakura, her father's team vanished into the Hokage
Tower, leaving Sakura to wait for her own team to arrive.

        "Kiba's sister's dogs are nice, aren't they?"

        Sakura jumped in surprise, whirling around.  "N-naruto-san!" she
exclaimed.  "When did you -"

        Naruto gestured vaguely.  "I was waiting over there for you to
be done with your dad's team."

        "Oh," Sakura said.  "She was Kiba's sister?" she asked.

        "Yeah," Naruto said.

        Sakura shook her head as she sat down on the bench Hana had
vacated.  It was hard to imagine the woman she'd just met being so
closely related to the rambunctious boy from their class.  Naruto seated
himself next to her, and they waited in silence for a few minutes.

        "Hey, Sakura-chan," Naruto said suddenly.  "Has your father ever
said anything about mine?"

        Sakura blinked.  "What?  Why are you asking -"

        "My mom won't talk about him," Naruto said.  "Except that they
weren't married, and he was a Leaf ninja.  I know she had to have...
known your parents back then, so I just wondered..."  Naruto's words
brought back a familiar pain and anger, and it must have showed on
Sakura's face.  "Sorry.  I shouldn't have brought that up."  Naruto
grimaced.  "She still won't talk about that either."

        Sakura's gut churned.  "I wish you wouldn't either," Sakura
snapped without thinking.

        Naruto froze for a moment.  "I'm sorry."

        Sakura realized what she had said.  She wished she could say
that she felt some of the Nine-Tails's unnatural rage, but all she felt
was her own emotions.  The stupid thing she'd just said was all her.  It
was true, she wished Naruto would just let the matter of what had
happened between their mothers be and stop reminding her of whose son he
was.  It was still stupid and hurtful to say it in that way, to his
face.  It probably sounded like she hated him.  "Naruto-san, I -"

        "No."  Naruto held up his hand.  "Don't apologize to me.  I was
wrong to talk about... about what my mother did that way.  It won't
happen again."  Despite his calm words, his face was stormy.  "Again,
I'm sorry."  He stood and stalked off, and Sakura stared after him
helplessly.

        Then she buried her face in her hands.  Had she just wrecked
what was possibly the closest thing she'd ever have to a friendship with
one of her peers?  The only thing stopping her from giving freedom to
the tears that wanted to flow was the eyes of the ninja going in and out
of the Hokage Tower.

        She wasn't sure how long she sat there before hearing Sasuke's
voice.  "Get up, dead last.  Kakashi-sensei's finally showed up."

        She looked up at the dark-haired boy, then scanned the plaza as
she rose, finding Kakashi and Naruto by the entrance to the tower.
"Sorry."

        Sasuke just grunted, and she followed him over to the rest of
the team.  Kakashi's eye wandered over Sakura, but he didn't say
anything other than, "A bit of an exciting mission today, I think.
Let's head on up to meet with Hokage-sama."

        They wound up waiting for a few minutes outside the briefing
room, as the previous meeting had gone over.  When the doors opened, it
was her father's team who emerged, escorting an unfamiliar, old civilian
man.  When her father spotted her, he paused for a moment.  At a nod
from Inuzuka Hana, he quickly walked over to Sakura and her team.

        "Haruno-san," Kakashi said in greeting.

        "I'll be gone for a few weeks at least on a mission," he said.
"Please take care of Sakura-chan for me, Hatake-sama."

        "I told you before," Kakashi said, "what I think of ninja who
don't take care of their comrades."  His voice was flat.

        "Of course," Sakura's father said, and then he turned to Sakura.
"Are you okay, Sakura-chan?" he asked, worry clear in his tone.

        Sakura forced herself to take a deep breath and try to present a
facade of calm.  "I'll be fine, Father.  Have a safe mission."

        "Right," he said.  "You be safe too."  He glanced at Naruto and
Sasuke.  "And you two also."

        "She'll be safe," Naruto said seriously.  "I promise."

        Sakura swallowed.  What was he doing?  Her father seemed taken
aback, but he managed a quick thank you before returning to his waiting
team.  As they left, the civilian asked, "Your daughter?"

        "Yes, Tazuna-san," her father answered.

        "Cute kid," the old man said, and that was the last Sakura heard
of the conversation.

        At a signal from one of the Hokage's chuunin guards, Kakashi led
them into the briefing room.  As normal, the Hokage was seated at a long
desk, although somewhat less typically Iruka was seated next to him
instead of the other of his usual assistants.  "And a good morning to
Team Kakashi," the Hokage said, puffing contentedly on his pipe as he
studied a sheet of paper.

        "Good morning, Hokage-sama," Sakura said in unison were
teammates, forcing herself to push aside her still troubled emotions.
This wasn't the time or the place to deal with the problem between
Naruto and her.

        Kakashi just raised his hand in way that was almost vaguely
reminiscent of a lazy salute.  "Morning, Hokage-sama.  Is the mission we
talked about ready?"

        "Yes.  Iruka-sensei?"

        The teacher reached under the desk and pulled out a metal box.
It was held shut by what looked like a padlock with a paper seal taped
over it.  "This is to be delivered to the guard outpost in Otafuku Gai.
It should go without saying that you aren't to look inside," Iruka
stated.  "You will receive a similar package there, which you will
return here."

        After a brief look among the three genin, Naruto stepped forward
and accepted the package, which turned out to have straps bolted on to
the bottom, allowing it to be worn like a backpack.  "Understood," he
said.  They waited for a moment.

        Kakashi had pulled out his current Gutsy Shinobi book again.
"What are you waiting for?" he asked.

        "You aren't coming with us, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked.  It
was normal for them to do D-ranks on their own, but one going outside
the village walls, even if only as far as the neighboring town of
Otafuku Gai?

        Kakashi turned a page in his book.  "I promised my widowed
neighbor that I would water her plants today."  None of the genin even
bothered protesting the excuse.  The Hokage chuckled, and Kakashi
flipped to the next page.  "Oh, I almost forgot the exciting part."
Then he turned another page.

        The genin waited, but he didn't say anything, apparently lost in
his reading.  "What exciting part?" Sasuke asked after their teacher
reached the next page.

        "If you can make it there and back here without touching the
ground," Kakashi said, "I think you'll be ready for a C-rank mission."

        Sakura could feel her teammates' sudden interest, although she
was far less excited.  "All right... wait," Naruto said.  "If you're
going to be watering widowed plants, how will you even know if we -"
Kakashi let out a thoughtful sound, and Naruto cut off.  "Jounin,
right."

        Sasuke made for the windows behind the Hokage and Iruka.  "Come
on.  Let's get this over with."  The Hokage reached behind himself,
unlocking the window.  With a nod of thanks, Sasuke opened it and jumped
outside and onto the roof a short distance below.

        Naruto grinned.  "All right.  This should be fun," he said
before heading out himself.

        Sakura took a moment to steel herself before following her
teammates out onto the roof.

***********************************************************************


        Naruto's day had not started well.  He'd had to drop his mother
off at the hospital for a checkup before meeting his team at the tower.
It had been more awkward than usual, as he'd been working up the courage
to broach the subject of his father, which he'd only done a handful of
times since he first realized that it was a little weird that his mother
rarely spoke of him and never in detail.  Then, when he'd gone to meet
his team, Sakura had been with her father, who... he really had no idea
how to interact with, now that he knew the truth.  What did you even say
in that situation?  None of the etiquette lessons he'd half-learned
second-hand via Hinata had anything to say on the subject.

        Somehow he didn't think, "Sorry my mother killed your wife,"
would really make much of an impact.

        So fathers had been on his mind when he'd joined up with Sakura,
and he'd turned into a big idiot.  Sure, their parents must have known
each other back then!  That was a smooth bit of conversation!  What kind
of idiot was he?  It was a minor miracle - even with the girl's obvious
starvation for friendship - that Sakura was willing to accept his
overtures at all.   If she shut him down now it would fall on Sasuke to
try to bind this team together, and he wouldn't even call Sakura by name
unless Naruto had threatened him enough in prior hour.

        Even the excitement of getting a D-rank mission that bordered on
a C-rank by mere virtue of going outside the village proper, with the
promise of actual C-ranks to come, couldn't totally lift his spirits.
At least the mission itself and their teacher's challenge were going
well.  Getting to the village walls without touching the ground had been
trivial; the only moderate difficulty had been explaining what they were
doing to the one adult ninja who had come up to interrogate them about
why they were jumping from roof to roof instead of using the streets.

        Crossing the open space before the gates had required waiting
for a passing merchant's cart, and getting through the gates on it had
required another quick explanation to the guards.  Then a quick run
through the trees to Otafuku Gai, a brief pause to rest, and another
rooftop excursion to the guard post, and with a knock on the window and
a third explanation a laughing chuunin had exchanged the packages and
sent them back on their way.

        They were about halfway back when Sasuke, in the lead, came to a
sudden halt.  Naruto only barely managed to adjust his jump so that he
landed beside him on the tree branch rather than slamming into his
friend's back.  Naruto opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but
Sasuke raised one hand, silencing him.  The dark-haired boy's eyes
darted around, searching for something.

        Naruto took a slow, deep breath and searched his own senses,
looking for what had spooked his teammate.  He could hear Sakura
bringing up the rear, a couple of trees behind them. Above, he could see
a squirrel darting from one overhanging tree branch to another.   He
could smell rich, familiar forest scents.  Nothing unusual.

        With a heavy thud, Sakura landed on the branch beside him.  She
bent over for a moment, breathing heavily, but when Naruto glanced at
her in concern she straightened.

        Sasuke made an annoyed sound.  "He's gone."

        "Who -" Sakura began.

        "We're being followed," the Uchiha announced.

        "You sure?" Naruto asked.  "I didn't hear anything."

        "If Sasuke-kun thinks he noticed something," Sakura said
quietly, then hesitated.

        "Better safe than sorry," Naruto agreed quickly.  Sasuke grunted
his own agreement.  Naruto reached back to touch the metal case he wore
on his back.  "We don't know what's in this," he said.  "Someone could
be after it."

        "This close to the village?" Sakura asked, shivering.

        "It's no guarantee of safety," Sasuke stated coldly.  "Not even
within the walls."  Sakura shivered again.  "We move together; protect
the package.  As fast as we can, no more stopping.  Try to keep up, dead
last."

        Naruto's mouth twitched, filing away the matter of his final
words for a... candid discussion after the mission.  He gave Sakura a
glance, but the girl nodded.  "I'll be fine," she said softly.  How she
could put up with how Sasuke treated her, Naruto didn't understand.

        "On three, then," Naruto said, and moments later they were
moving again.  Naruto kept his eyes open and his ears alert, but he
didn't spy any sign of pursuit.  Sakura started to fall behind about ten
minutes into the run, but by slowing slightly himself Naruto let her
catch up.  As they neared the village less than half an hour later, he
was half-convinced Sasuke had been imagining things.

        Naruto forced Sasuke to stop for a moment by grabbing his
sleeve.  "Decision time," Naruto said.  "We're going to have to cross
the cleared area again to get to the gates.  We can't wait for another
convenient cart like we planned if we really think someone is following
us."  Sasuke grunted, but didn't seem to have an answer.  "What do you
think, Sakura-chan?"

        It wasn't until he didn't get a response that he realized that
Sakura hadn't made the jump to the tree branch he and Sasuke were
perched on.  Instead, she still stood on the last branch, panting and
leaning against the trunk of the tree with one hand.  "Coming," she
said, and she pushed herself away from the tree, visibly steadied
herself, and leapt.

          It was a bad jump, Naruto could tell instantly.  She undershot
the branch the boys were standing on, barely able to grab hold of it
with one hand.  Naruto reached down and grabbed her free hand,
supporting her weight.  Before he could ask, Sasuke took her other hand,
and together the two lifted her up to the branch.  Sasuke let go almost
immediately, but Naruto shifted himself to pick up the slack.  "She
needs to rest, Sasuke," Naruto said.

        "No!" Sakura protested weakly.  "I'll be fine!"

        Naruto almost snapped at her not to lie, but he swallowed the
words.  She would take them badly, he knew.  Sasuke wasn't so kind.
"Jump to the next branch," Sasuke said, gesturing, "and I'll believe
that, dead last."  At least Sakura for some strange reason usually
listened to the bastard, no matter how offensive he got.

        Sakura wrenched herself free of Naruto's grasp and jumped.
Naruto lost almost a full second staring at Sasuke in horror before he
leapt after her.  Her desperate surge of strength made her overshoot her
target branch.  As Naruto bounced off of it, following her, she slammed
at full speed into the side of a tree trunk and started to slide down
it.  Naruto managed to orient himself appropriately so he could land
feet-first above her, and hours of tree-walking training paid off as he
stuck the landing.  He raced down a few feet to where Sakura had stopped
her fall by grabbing a gnarl with one hand.  Her other arm hung at an
odd angle by her side, broken.

        "Sorry," she muttered, as Naruto gently took hold of her and
lifted her up.  Without a thought for Kakashi's challenge he carried her
down the tree trunk and lay her on the ground underneath it.

        Sasuke caught up with them, though he stayed perched on a low
branch.  "How bad?" he asked, his voice so flat that someone who didn't
know the Uchiha as well as Naruto would never have detected the guilt.

        Naruto gave the girl a quick inspection.  "Broken arm looks like
the worst of it.  That and probably chakra exhaustion," he diagnosed.
The rest was just bumps and scrapes, nothing serious.

        "Sorry," Sakura said again, but then she tried to move her arm
and whatever else she might have said was lost in a moan of pain.

        "Don't move it," Naruto warned her, reaching back into his pack.
"Damn it, I don't have my full medical kit with me."  He should never
have gotten into the habit of not carrying it around on their D-ranks.
Or at least insisted on going to grab it when they'd learned they were
leaving the village.

        "I have," Sakura said, then paused with a wince.  "Sealing
scroll, in my rear pack."  Naruto nodded, gently turning her so he could
reach.

        "We can't afford to wait around," Sasuke interjected as Naruto
pulled out the scroll.

        "We don't really have a choice," Naruto snapped back, unrolling
the scroll.  He was briefly distracted as he marveled at the breadth of
material kept in so small a scroll; custom work, not an inefficient
general purpose storage scroll.

        "We still have a mission," Sasuke said.  "Give me the package."

        "What?" Naruto asked, looking up at his friend.  "You're just
going to -"

        "If we're being followed," Sasuke said harshly, "they'll follow
the package.  Even if not, she'll get help faster if I go and tell the
gate guards to send someone."

        "It... it makes sense," Sakura said.

        "Fine," Naruto said, shrugging the metal box off of his
shoulders and throwing it at Sasuke.  "Go."  Without another word, the
Uchiha was gone, and Naruto returned his attention to the sealing
scroll.  A few moments later, he had released what he needed.  While he
started to splint her arm, Sakura took the soldier pill and painkillers
he offered her from the kit.  It would make her pain and exhaustion
worse when they wore off in an hour or so, but he needed her on her
feet, just in case Sasuke was right about someone following them.

        A few minutes later, Naruto helped her stand and supported her
as they started to make their slow way back to the village.  "I'm
sorry," Sakura said again.

        "We all make mistakes," Naruto said as gently as he could.  She
looked like she felt horrible for messing up the mission already; he
didn't need to guilt her right now.

        "Not just for this," Sakura said.  "For... for always needing
help."

        "We're teammates," Naruto said simply.  "We have to take care of
each other."  He sent an unkind thought off in Sasuke's direction.  The
other boy's argument had made sense, he supposed, but it just felt
wrong.  "Besides, I promised your father I'd keep you safe."  Great job
he'd done of that.

        "Why?" Sakura asked.  "Why did you... after what I said this
morning..."

        Naruto stopped moving.  "After what you said?" he said.  "You
didn't say anything wrong."

        "You looked so angry," Sakura said quietly.

        "Only at myself," Naruto said.  "I was worried that you would
hate me for... the stupid thing I said."  He grimaced.  "There's... I
know there's nothing that can make up for what my mother did.
Practically the only thing I know about my father is that he died
fighting the Nine-Tails, and I still hate it for that.

        "I can only imagine what I'd feel if he'd been killed by another
Leaf ninja, an ally, and his killer was still -" Naruto stopped short as
Sakura pulled herself free of him.  The pink-haired girl wavered, but
she stayed on her feet as she stepped away from Naruto.  "Sakura-chan?"
he asked carefully.  "What's wrong?"

        As though his question was a trigger, she broke down, tears
running down her face.  She averted her gaze.  "I'm sorry," she
apologized.  "I'm so..."

        Naruto couldn't guess what had caused this reaction, but helping
Hinata through her troubles after the kidnapping attempt had given him
experience calming crying girls.  Taking care to avoid jostling her
wounded arm, he reached around and hugged her.  "I'm here, Sakura," he
whispered.

        She half-collapsed into him, sobbing into his shoulder, and he
let her.  After a few moments, she straightened, pulling away from
Naruto.  Her face was red, but the tears seemed have stopped.  Naruto
ventured a smile, but the girl wouldn't meet his gaze.  "You should hate
me," she said quietly.

        Naruto wasn't sure why she felt that way, unless maybe she meant
how she had rejected him back when they'd first met, which was
ridiculous.  That didn't matter right now, though.  "I don't hate you,"
he assured her.

        "You should," she insisted.

        "I don't," Naruto repeated.  "Believe it."  He ventured another
smile.  "If anything, I'm worried it's the other way around; that you'll
hate me."  His smile faded.  "I can't say you'd be wrong, really."

        "I don't," Sakura began,then trailed off.  "I don't want to hate
you," she said.  "It'd be... you've only been kind to me, kinder than I
-"

        "Don't talk like that," Naruto interrupted.  "Of course you
deserve to be treated kindly."  Sakura didn't say anything.  "If you
don't want to hate me, then don't."  When Sakura still didn't respond,
he offered her his hand instead.  "Would you like to be friends
instead?"

        "My father," Sakura started.

        "This isn't about our parents," Naruto said.  "I'm just me, and
you're just you.  Would you like to be friends?"

        "Why?" Sakura asked.  "Why do you want to be friends with me?"

        "Why wouldn't I?"

        Sakura hung her head.  "Because I'm... I'm weak.  I'm useless
and a coward.  I'm not pretty and strong like Hinata-san; I'm not brave
like you or Sasuke-kun.  I've never done anything for you, and I... I
think I do hate your mother."

        "Is that all?" Naruto asked.  "Sakura-chan... that's not how I
pick my friends."  He paused.  "Ino-san is a pretty girl," he said,
"and she was top kunoichi in our class.  She gave me birthday presents,
nice ones, every year we were in the same class.  Her father visits my
mom sometimes and they share old war stories.

        "Would you say that Ino-san and I are friends?"

        A searching look appeared on Sakura's face, and Naruto waited
for her to reach her conclusion.  "No?" the pink-haired girl said after
a moment.

        "That's right," Naruto said.  "Do you know why I'm not friends
with her?  Because of you."

        "Me?"

        "Because of how she treats you," Naruto explained.  "Because
she's a bully and cruel.  Because she uses her friends as weapons in her
feud with Ami-san.  Because she thinks the fact that she's pretty and
strong means that she's better than those who aren't."

        Sakura shifted uncomfortably.  "She... she's not... that
horrible.  She... she's better than Ami-san at least."

        Naruto laughed.  "And that's why I want to be your friend," he
said.  "You're kind, even when people don't deserve it."  He laughed
again.  "You even manage to put up with Sasuke, somehow."  He became
more serious.  "Even when... even when you found out who I was, back
when we started at the academy.  You didn't try to hurt me or get
revenge.  You just wanted me to leave you alone, didn't you?"

        Sakura nodded hesitantly.

        "Well, I can't do that anymore," Naruto said.  "We're teammates
now."  He held out his hand again.  "So... do you want to be friends?"

          Sakura hesitantly took his hand.  "Yes," she whispered, a
series of quick expressions Naruto couldn't read passing over her face.

        Naruto smiled at her.  "Then we're friends.  That was easy,
wasn't it?"

        That was when the search party that had set out from the gates
when Sasuke reached them found them.

***********************************************************************


        Sakura was in something of a daze as the two guards escorted her
and Naruto the short distance back to the gates, Naruto's words echoing
through her head.  "Then we're friends.  That was easy, wasn't it?"  Was
that really all there was to it?  Could they just... decide that they
were going to be friends, despite everything, and then be friends?
Would that really work?

        So long as she kept her secret, and her father didn't find out
and get upset... maybe.  She felt guilty for accepting Naruto's offer
while hiding what she really was, but not guilty enough to turn him
down.  That probably made her a horrible person, but... it was also kind
of fair.  She couldn't hold Naruto responsible for her mother's death,
so he couldn't blame her for his father's.  He just... didn't know that
he could blame her in the first place.

        She was so distracted by her thoughts that she barely noticed
the thinly veiled irritation and disgust in the tone of the guard who
told her, "Don't screw up like this again," after they were through the
gates.  She did, however, notice the glare Naruto shot at his retreating
back as their escort returned to their other duties, which only
lightening when the other guard gave her teammate a solid punch to the
shoulder and began a lecture on politeness.

        Then Naruto's face fell again as he glanced about the the gate
plaza.  "Is something wrong, Naruto-san?" Sakura asked.

        Naruto turned to her and gave her a thin smile.  "You don't need
to be so formal with your friends, Sakura-chan," he chided gently.

        Sakura flushed.  "Naruto-kun," she said hesitatingly, testing
the feel of the address on her tongue.  It wasn't as awkward as she'd
feared.

        Naruto's smile briefly widened into an honest grin, then faded.
"I was hoping Sasuke would wait for us here," he said.

        "The mission," Sakura began.

        Naruto cut her off with a shrug.  "I know," he said.  "Come on;
we should get you to the hospital so you can get your arm looked at."
He paused.  "Are you up for walking all the way there, or do you want to
rest here while I see if I can get us a cart ride or something?"

        "I can walk," Sakura answered unthinkingly.  Naruto looked a
little dubious, but when Sakura took stock of herself she was pretty
sure she could walk the rest of the way.

        "All right," Naruto said, and she followed him through the
streets of the the Leaf Village.

        When they reached the hospital, she remembered to tell Naruto to
ask if Kabuto's father was available, and they were quickly shuffled off
to an otherwise-abandoned waiting room.  "How do you know Yakushi-
sensei?" Naruto asked her while they waited.  "Did he make that first
aid kit you have?"

        "His son is my father's teammate," Sakura answered.  "He gave me
the kit."

        Naruto frowned.  "I can't remember if I've met his son," he
said.  "But if he made that scroll, he's really good.  I've been working
on the same sort of thing, and I don't think I could get half as much
material stored in a scroll twice the size."

        "You know his father?" Sakura asked after a moment's silence.

        "Yeah," Naruto said.  "He... uh... works with my mother," he
said awkwardly.

        Sakura resisted the urge to grimace at the reminder.  Naruto was
Naruto, not just the son of Uzumaki Kushina.  "Oh," she said.

        Before Naruto could answer, a short-haired woman wearing a dark
kimono poked her head in through the open waiting room door.  Naruto
instantly sat up.  "Shizune-neechan!" he exclaimed.  "You're back?"

        The woman nodded.  "Came in this morning; I'm sorry I missed
your graduation, Naruto."  She gave Sakura a smile, making her shift
uncomfortably in her seat.  "I heard you requested Yakushi-sensei," she
said, "but he's got a surgery scheduled soon.  Do you mind if I take a
look instead?"

        Sakura glanced at Naruto, who nodded.  "Shizune-neechan's
great," he said.  "She's Tsunade-hime's apprentice and probably the best
medical ninja in the village."

        "Flatterer," Shizune said with a smile.  "Take your teammate to
exam room 206, okay, Naruto?  I'll be there in just a few minutes."  She
waved as she left, revealing a Leaf forehead protector worn around her
forearm.

        Naruto led her to the named room.  "Shizune-neechan's nice," he
told Sakura as he helped her onto the cot.  "You'll like her."

        "Is she... your sister?" Sakura asked.  The woman seemed a
little too old for that.

        Naruto blinked.  "Oh, no," he said.  "I call her that because
she took care of me when I was young while -" Naruto cut off suddenly, a
look of uncharacteristic fear passing across his face.  "Wait here," he
said, jumping off the stool he was waiting on.  "I need to -"

        He cut off again, this time interrupted by the sound of a
wheelchair being pushed down the hallway outside.  "And here we are,"
came Shizune's voice, "a little surprise present since you put up with
my poking and prodding all morning."

        Sakura clenched her fists as she watched Shizune wheel Uzumaki
Kushina into the room.  She felt her nails bite into her palms as she
watched the shocked expression pass over the redheaded woman's face for
the briefest of instants before Kushina looked away.  Red-hot anger
boiled in her gut.

        "I'm sorry, Sakura-chan," Naruto said.  "I didn't realize..."

        Shizune blinked.  "Is something wrong?" she asked, speaking over
the boy.

        Sakura ignored both of them, all her attention focused on the
crippled woman in the wheelchair.  She almost didn't recognize the
growled, "You!" as her own voice.

        "Young lady, that's hardly," Shizune began, only to stop as
Kushina grabbed the sleeve of her kimono.

        "Let it be," the older woman said in her rough voice.

        "But, Kushina-sama..."

        "Shizune," the woman snapped, then broke into a fit of coughing.
"Let it be."

        "All right," Shizune said dubiously, and she slowly approached
Sakura while Naruto raced over to his mother and wheeled her into the
hallway outside.  Shizune seated herself on the stool Naruto had
vacated.  "So, you're Naruto's teammate, right?" she asked, obvious
forced cheer in her voice.  "What's your name?"  Without waiting for an
answer, she reached for Sakura's splinted arm and started to unwrap it.

        Sakura resisted the perverse urge to snarl at the woman as her
churning gut settled into a calmer, but still almost painful warmth.
"Haruno Sakura," she admitted and waited for the reaction.

        Shizune froze.  Her eyes darted back to the half-open door.
"Oh."  She swallowed.  "Oh."  She sat still for just a moment before a
barely audible, "You know?" escaped her lips.

        This time Sakura did snarl.  "I know she killed my mother."

        Shizune didn't answer for a while.  "I'm sorry, Haruno-san," she
finally said, her voice controlled.  "Let's get this arm taken care of."
Shizune undid Naruto's splint, and started to feel along the wounded
arm.

        Sakura steeled herself for pain, but nothing came.  Shizune
frowned.  "Naruto?" she asked, loudly enough to be heard out in the
hallway.  "What did you say was wrong with Haruno-san?"

        "Looked like a simple fracture of the right forearm," Naruto
answered from outside, "and probable chakra exhaustion."

        Shizune felt along Sakura's arm again.  "We need to go over your
first aid again, Naruto," she said.  "Her arm's barely bruised!"  As if
to demonstrate, Shizune moved Sakura's arm through it's full range of
motion.  Sakura didn't feel any pain.

        "What?" Naruto asked, poking his head back inside the exam room.
"You're kidding."

        "I haven't run a diagnostic technique," Shizune added, laying
one hand across Sakura's forehead, "but I'm not seeing any signs of
chakra exhaustion either."

        There was a murmur from outside, and Naruto's head pulled out of
the doorway for a moment before returning.  "My mom says she probably...
inherited a regenerative ability?"  His voice was confused, and he gave
Sakura a questioning glance, to which she could only shrug in response.

        Shizune's eyes widened momentarily, just long enough for Sakura
to catch.  "I see," she said.  She let Sakura's arm go.  "Do you think
you could channel a little chakra, Haruno-san?" she asked.  Sakura
formed a seal and complied.  "Any pain?"  When Sakura shook her head,
Shizune nodded. "If you can do that, you're not suffering chakra
exhaustion.  You should go home and rest for the remainder of the day,
just in case, but I think you're fine.  Do you know the way out?"

        As she left, Naruto gave her a guilty look and another, "I'm
sorry."

        She forced herself to nod at him and ignore the woman next to
him, and then she left and made her own way home.  By the time she made
it there, went to the kitchen, and grabbed something to eat, her anger
had finally cooled to a calm simmer.  She knew it wasn't Naruto's fault.
It wasn't even... and this hurt to admit... his mother's fault, really.
That Shizune woman hadn't known who she was.  That was all.  As she
stood there in the kitchen, half-eaten slice of bread in hand, she took
a deep breath, and let the last of the anger go for now.

        Then she finished her snack and went upstairs to take a quick
shower and change clothes.  Not intending to go out, she threw on one of
her favorite old t-shirts, a worn gray shirt with a pattern of her
namesake pink cherry blossoms running across the front, and a pair of
shorts.  She left her forehead protector on her nightstand, and went
back downstairs to the kitchen.

        She sat at the kitchen table, staring at her arm, and finally
allowed herself to think about what had just happened.  Her arm had been
broken, and now it was not.  Shizune had said it was barely bruised, but
as she stared at it now she could see no sign of injury.  She had
inherited a regenerative ability?  Her father certainly had no such
skill.  She'd helped him tend his wounds enough times to know that.

        An idea tickled at the back of her mind.  Without thought she
stood and found a sharp kitchen knife, then thoroughly washed it with
soap and water.  Without hesitating to think about it, she drew the
blade across her palm, breaking the skin and drawing blood.  She held
her hand out over the sink, letting the blood drip down, and waited.
After a minute or so, the sharp pain faded away.  She set the knife down
and rinsed her hand, then turned it to look at her palm.  As she'd
somehow expected, the skin was smooth and unmarred.  There was no sign
of the self-inflicted injury.  She made a fist, then opened it, and felt
no pain.

        That was that, then, she thought numbly.  Nothing human healed
like that.  She picked up the knife to wash it, then the doorbell rang.
Barely thinking, she answered the door and found Kakashi and her
teammates waiting outside.

        It was only when she followed their eyes that she realized she
was still holding the bloody knife.

***********************************************************************


        Uchiha Sasuke was fuming as his teacher knocked on the door of
Sakura's house.  Ever since the dead last had taken his comment that
he'd believe she was fine if she could make the next jump as an
instruction, this whole day had turned into one disaster after another.
He'd realized that the day was an irrecoverable loss from the moment
he'd delivered the package, when the first question out of Kakashi's
mouth had been a perfectly flat, "Where are your teammates, Sasuke-kun?"

        Then they'd had to run all around the village trying to track
those teammates down, as the hospital had inexplicably let a twelve-
year-old girl with a broken arm and chakra exhaustion just leave after a
brief checkup.  When the receptionist had found it, the doctor's report
had stated that she was uninjured, only tired, which was ridiculous.
Sasuke had seen her arm; that kind of injury didn't disappear in an hour
or two.

        They still hadn't found Naruto, even after checking his house,
but after a quiet talk with Naruto's mother, Kakashi had just left a
message to send Naruto to meet them at Sakura's house.  Then he'd led
Sasuke there, leaving him vaguely amused that the first of his female
classmates' whose house he would visit would be the one girl who'd never
asked him over.

        Sakura opened the door, and Sasuke gaped a moment as he stared
at her arm.  It had been broken!  Had a medical ninja wasted the time
and energy to force it to heal so quickly?  For a random genin? Then he
noticed the knife in her hand, and Sasuke lost that train of thought.
Was that blood?

        "Lunch fighting back, Sakura-chan?" Kakashi said easily,
apparently not surprised at the girl's lack of injury.

        Her eyes widened, she let out a quiet squeak, and she dropped
the knife.  Kakashi caught it by the hilt, and after a moment he wiped
it off with a cloth he pulled out of somewhere, flipped it around, and
offered it back to the pink-haired girl.  Sakura gingerly took it.  "Let
me see your arm," Kakashi said, his voice gentler than Sasuke could ever
remember hearing it.

        The jounin inspected the limb for a moment, then released it.
"Sasuke-kun," he said.  "You and Naruto-kun take a walk around the
block.  Sakura-chan and I need to have a private chat for a moment."
Sakura's green eyes widened, staring over Sasuke's shoulder, and he
followed them to see Naruto seated on the other side of the street, a
sour look on his face.

        Sasuke sensed his teacher would accept no argument, and so he
complied.  Naruto stood as he neared, and fell in beside Sasuke.  He
knew his friend, so he just made an interrogative grunt and waited for
Naruto to say what was bothering him.

        "You should have waited for us," Naruto said.  "At the gates.
You were safe there, even if there really had been someone after us."

        Sasuke grunted in answer, fighting down irritation.  "I was
going to," he said, "but the guards said I should report to Hokage-
sama."

        Naruto stopped short.  "Seriously?" he asked.  "Not even to
Kakashi-sensei, but to Hokage-sama?"

        Sasuke nodded, and then he thought about it for a moment.  "That
is odd."  That would mean that the guards had thought the fact that
they'd been targeted was of interest to the Hokage.  Either there was
something important in the packages they'd delivered, which the guards
wouldn't have had any reason to know, or... something important on the
team itself.  Sasuke wasn't ignorant.  He knew what could happen to
members of rare, powerful bloodlines.  But how would anyone have known
he was leaving the village on this day?

        "Right," Naruto said, apparently reading the expression on
Sasuke's face perfectly.  He started to walk again, turning down a side
street, and with a grunt Sasuke followed.

        "Sakura-chan met my mother at the hospital," Naruto said
suddenly.  Sasuke grunted again and nodded.  He didn't know or care
about the details, but he knew that dead last hated Naruto's mother for
some reason that Naruto thought was a good one.  A fake smile appeared
on the blond's face.  "On the bright side, she's got some sort of
regenerative bloodline limit."

        Now it was Sasuke's turn to stop short, and he had to race a
couple steps to catch up with his friend when he didn't stop.  That was
why her arm was healed?  Sasuke had thought he'd known every clan in the
village with a bloodline limit, and Haruno wasn't on that list.  He said
as much, and Naruto shrugged awkwardly.

        "I think it's from her mother," he said.

        "Bloodline clans don't usually let their children marry out,"
Sasuke said.  His grandfather on his father's side had married into the
Uchiha Clan.

        "I don't know," Naruto said sourly, taking another turn.

        Sasuke was self-aware enough to fight down the sudden hint of
jealousy that Sakura had somehow awakened a bloodline limit, while his
own eyes stayed stubbornly black.  It wasn't like dead last was anything
to be jealous of, and with an ability like that maybe she wouldn't be
useless dead weight forever.  Maybe this day wasn't a total loss after
all.

        They walked in silence until they returned to Sakura's house,
where they found Kakashi waiting outside with their other teammate.
Sakura had tied her forehead protector around her head again, clashing
oddly with the otherwise civilian clothes she was wearing.  Her eyes
didn't leave the ground as they approached.  "I'm sorry for messing up
the mission, Sasuke-kun," she said.

        "Just don't do it again, dead last," Sasuke said.  She knew
she'd screwed up, that was good enough for him.

        Naruto suddenly grabbed Sasuke's shoulder with surprising,
painful force.  "I've told you not to call her that, bastard," he said.
Sasuke shook himself free.

        "Naruto-s... Naruto-kun," Sakura said quietly.  "Don't."

        "But -" Naruto began, only to be cut off as Kakashi clapped
once.

        "Enough of that," Kakashi said.  "Mission report."  He pointed
at Sasuke.  "Go."

        A few minutes later, after each genin had given their report in
turn, Kakashi sighed.  "Well," he said.  "You completed the mission."
He let that hang in the air for a moment.  "You failed my challenge," he
added, "but that was the right call when one of you was hurt.  I'm glad
to see that you three realized that.

        "And," Kakashi continued, "I'll get a twenty percent discount
and Gai will owe me dinner, since my genin spotted his."

        Naruto stirred.  "Wait?  That's your mysterious jounin way you
were going to tell if we cheated?  You hired another genin team to
shadow us?"  It had been genin following them?  What kind of genin were
they, Sasuke wondered, if even he had only barely caught them, and only
once?

        Kakashi let out a quiet laugh before speaking again.  "I'm done
with the good news," he stated simply.  "Sakura-chan."

        "Sir?"

        "You should know your own limits.  If this had been a dangerous
mission, your actions could have gotten your entire team killed."

        "Yes, sir."  Sakura sounded appropriately miserable.

        "Naruto-kun," Kakashi continued, "you should have reported what
had happened as soon as you'd delivered Sakura-chan to the hospital.  If
there had been real opposition, Sasuke-kun could have been intercepted.
It was not safe to assume that the mission was complete and your other
teammate was safe."

        After Naruto acknowledged the criticism, Kakashi turned his
attention to Sasuke.  "Sasuke-kun, you should not have left your
teammates behind."

        Sasuke grunted irritably.

        Kakashi raised his hand to cut off the protest Sasuke didn't
feel like making anyway.  "I know that there were logical reasons for
your decision.  But what was the first lesson I taught you?"

        "Ninja who don't take care of their comrades are worse than
trash," Sasuke growled out.  "I know that!"  Wasn't his reasoning
obvious?

        "Is that so?" Kakashi asked, lowering his hand.  When Sasuke
didn't say anything, he continued to press.  "So, you thought that, by
going ahead, you were protecting your injured teammate? Drawing the
enemy away?"

        Sasuke nodded curtly.  "Sasuke-kun," Sakura breathed, but he
ignored her.

        "I see," Kakashi said.  "However, ninja are trained to look
underneath the underneath," he said.  "If I had been hunting your
package, I would have wondered, 'Maybe Sasuke-kun is just a decoy?'  I
would have attacked Naruto-kun and Sakura-chan as soon as you were out
of earshot, just to be sure.

        "You all made mistakes," Kakashi concluded, "but that's what
these D-rank missions are for.  I trust you will all learn the right
lessons from this.  We'll be meeting at eight o'clock in the morning for
training for the next two days and not taking any missions.

        "After that, we will take our first C-rank mission.  Be prepared
to spend at least two weeks away from the village.  We'll go over the
details tomorrow."

        "But we didn't -" Sakura began.

        "Don't try to change his mind, Sakura-chan," Naruto hissed.
Sasuke wasn't able to stop a bark of laughter.

        "Am I... are we really ready?" Sakura asked despite the blond's
warning.

        "Yes," Kakashi answered simply.  "Naruto-kun, Sakura-chan,
you're dismissed for the afternoon.  Walk with me a while, Sasuke-kun."

        Trying to hide his discomfort at being singled out, Sasuke
followed his teacher down what quickly became, to his surprise, a far
too familiar path.  "Why are we here?" Sasuke demanded angrily as they
paused outside the Uchiha Clan's graveyard.

        "To visit a friend of mine," Kakashi said, and without any
further explanation he led Sasuke to one of the memorial markers.  It
was one of the smaller ones, indicating the body had been destroyed in
the field and not even the ashes had been returned.  Sasuke didn't
recognize the name.

        "Uchiha Obito," Kakashi stated, "was my teammate, during the
Third Ninja World War."

        "So?" Sasuke asked.  What did this have to do with anything?

        Kakashi sighed, and then he raised one hand to his forehead
protector, slung over his missing eye.  "There's another name I'm known
by," he said, and then he lifted his forehead protector and opened the
eye that wasn't missing after all.  "Sharingan Kakashi."

        "How?!" Sasuke demanded.

        Kakashi closed his crimson eye and let his forehead protector
drop.  "Sit," he said.  "I'm going to tell you how I got Uchiha Obito
killed."

***********************************************************************


        Naruto ate his dinner in a silence that he knew spoke louder
than words, even the fact that his mother had made ramen failing to lift
his spirits.  If anything, it made it worse, because Naruto knew it was
a deliberate attempt to improve his mood and distract him from the
events of the day.  He did not want to be distracted, and it was
disappointing that his mother would resort to such a transparent ploy.

        His mother picked distractedly at her own bowl of ramen, finally
letting a mouthful drop back into the broth uneaten.  "How did it go?"
she asked, in a quiet near-whisper.  "Once Kakashi-kun caught up with
you."

        Naruto stirred his ramen with one chopstick, watching it spiral
around for a moment before answering.  "We'll be taking a C-rank mission
in three days.  Kakashi-sensei said to start preparing for at least two
weeks in the field.  We'll learn the details tomorrow."

        "Was... how was Haruno-kun doing?"  Naruto considered himself
good at reading his mother's moods, but he couldn't place the look on
his mother's face.  Anger?  Guilt?  Fear?  It was much like the one that
had appeared for only a moment when she'd heard that Sakura's injuries
had disappeared.

        When she'd explained that Sakura must have inherited a
regenerative ability, her face had been smooth and emotionless, the same
look she got whenever Naruto asked her a question she didn't want to
answer about his father.  Naruto set his chopsticks down on top of his
bowl, and carefully considered his words before he answered.

        "Did Sakura-chan's mother die in an attempt to use her bloodline
limit to heal you?" Naruto asked.  Attempts at transferring or copying
bloodline abilities had been made in the past, but the Leaf Village had
banned such research for more than a decade, due to the low success rate
and the high chances of killing the donor.

        Naruto's mother dropped her own chopsticks.  One fell into her
bowl with a soft plop, the other bounced off the rim and rolled off the
table and onto the floor.  A look of pure, honest confusion passed over
her face, then it flickered into that same damned guarded expression
before she looked away.  "No," she said, her voice choking.  "I would...
I would never have agreed to such a thing."

        "Then how did she die?!" Naruto demanded.  "I don't... I really
don't want to believe that you're just a murderer.  That's what Sakura-
chan thinks, I know.  I want to be able to tell her that's not true; I
want to be able to ask her to not hate you.  I understand if what
happened is classified.  But you have to give me something, Mother!
Please!"

        Naruto's mother didn't look at him.  "I can't tell you," she
said, her voice croaking even more than usual.  "I... just can't," she
said.  "There is... it is classified.  There are secrets there that
aren't mine to tell anymore.  I can't... I can't give you what you want,
Naruto."

        "Even if you can't say why," Naruto pleaded, "at least tell me
that you aren't a murderer, Mother.  Give me something to work with!
Anything!"  His mother said nothing, still hiding her face, and Naruto's
stomach dropped.  "Either," he started, and then he was able to say
anything for a moment.  "Either," he tried again, "you are a murderer,
which I can't believe, or you... you want Sakura-chan to hate you."

        "She should hate me," his mother said hoarsely.

        Naruto slammed his hands into the table and stood, fighting down
fury.  "Damn it, Mother!  I'm tired of all these secrets!  You wouldn't
tell me why you were so interested in Sakura-chan until she told me in
front of you.  Now you won't tell me about what actually happened.  You
won't even tell me about my father!"  He forced himself to stop talking
before he said something he would regret, and turned away from the
dinner table.  "I'm not hungry."

        He heard his mother wheel herself out from the table and toward
him.  "Naruto," she said softly, "come here."  When he hesitated, she
added, "Please."

        He followed her out of the kitchen and into their living room.
His mother gestured for him to sit on the couch.  As Naruto obeyed, she
opened a small cupboard built into the wall, the one that she kept
locked with a seal keyed to her chakra.  He knew it held old scrolls and
documents from the Whirlpool Village, the history of the Uzumaki Clan,
and her few personal keepsakes from before she came to the Leaf Village.
She pulled out a photo album he'd never seen before and shut the door,
resealing it before pushing herself over to beside where Naruto sat.

        "I... Hokage-sama convinced me, when you were very young, and we
thought... that I might not be here for long, that it was best to keep
the identity of your father secret until you were mature enough to keep
it secret, for your own and my safety."  His mother paused, almost
opening the album.

        "Mom?" Naruto asked, and he knew the raw hunger showed in his
voice.

        "I always intended to tell you, once you became a genin, but...
with everything that happened that day... I guess I didn't feel ready,"
his mother continued.  "I can't tell you what you want to know about how
Amaya died, but... this I can tell you.

        "I first met your father in the academy here," she said, "and I
thought he was a total loser."  She laughed softly.  "I've never been
more wrong and never been happier to be wrong."

        She opened the photo album, and on the first page was a large
shot of her, young and healthy, caught in the middle of giving a
tackling hug to a very familiar-looking blond man in a Leaf chuunin
uniform.  Naruto swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.  "That's," he
started, but he wasn't able to finish the sentence.

        "Your father, Naruto," his mother said, "was Namikaze Minato,
the Hidden Village of the Leaf's Fourth Hokage."

***********************************************************************


        Sakura's house was silent and dark.  The only light on was the
one over the kitchen table, as she slowly ate the sandwich she'd made
herself for dinner.  This wasn't the first time her father had left on
missions, of course, but always before Mizuki had come by to check on
her from time to time.  Now, Mizuki was... not available.  There was no
one else.

        No longer hungry, she left the half-eaten sandwich on her plate
and aimlessly wandered into the front sitting room, not bothering to
turn on the light.  A little illumination leaked out of the kitchen,
enough for her to see by as she found herself standing by her father's
armchair.  Almost on its own, her hand - the one she'd cut earlier -
reached out and rubbed the worn upholstery.  She wished her father was
here.

        There was a knock on the front door, making Sakura start.  She
fumbled with the lock for a moment, then thought to look through the
peephole before opening the door.  "Iruka-sensei," she said confusedly.

        The scarred chuunin shifted, obviously uncomfortable, and he
lifted up a box of takeout.  "I... I was thinking, that your father left
on a mission this morning, and I know that Mizuki-sensei used to check
on you when that happened, and since... I heard you were injured..."  He
trailed off, looking Sakura up and down.  Sakura glanced away until he
was done and the man had managed to hide his wary expression.  "You...
uh... you like anko dango, right?"  asked the teacher.

        Sakura nodded, and slowly stepped aside to let the man into her
house.  Iruka frowned as he took in the darkness.  Sakura reached for
light switch again and turned on the lights.  She wordlessly led Iruka
back to the kitchen, and gestured at the kitchen table.  Iruka stared at
her unfinished dinner for a moment, but didn't say anything as he seated
himself opposite Sakura's seat.

        "I... I can put tea on," Sakura said, stumbling over the words.
She knew what a hostess was supposed to do, but she had no experience
playing the role.

        "It's not necessary," Iruka said, opening the box of dango.

        Sakura sat down herself and took a skewer, pushing her dinner
plate aside.  "Thank you," she murmured as she bit into the sweet treat.

        Iruka didn't reach for one.  "Sasuke-kun said you... had a
broken arm and chakra exhaustion."

        He already knew what Sakura was.  Most adults did, she knew, but
Iruka had been there the night she'd found out herself, which meant that
he knew that she knew.  "The arm... healed," she said, hoping Iruka
would leave it at that.  "My chakra recovered."

        A thoughtful look passed over Iruka's face, for a moment
displacing the cautious, uncomfortable expression he'd worn this whole
time.  Sakura knew that he was searching his memory for any indication
of such regeneration from her academy days.  There wasn't any.  Her cuts
and scrapes had taken as long to heal as anyone else's, but that had
been before she'd first felt the burning anger of the Nine-Tails inside
of her.

        "Haruno-kun," Iruka said slowly.  Then he hesitated and
awkwardly said, "Sakura-chan," for the first time that Sakura could
remember.  "You remember when we were testing chakra capacity in the
academy?"  Sakura nodded.  It had been done quarterly, the last two
years in the academy.  The students had been ordered to channel as much
chakra as they could, for as long as they could, until it began to hurt.
Sakura had never been among the first few to drop out, but she'd only
lasted much longer than them in the very last test.  "How long did it
take you to start to recover?" Iruka asked.

        Sakura shifted in her seat, but she was too tired and drained to
lie.  "About ten minutes."

        "Ten... Sakura-chan," the chuunin said, "even jounin take close
to an hour of rest before their chakra reserves start to rebuild
themselves from heavy exertion."

        Sakura looked away.  "I know."

        Iruka licked his lips.  "You should have told me," he said.  "I
could have customized your training plan to -"

        "Or you could have just looked at me the way you did when you
saw my arm wasn't broken," Sakura said bitterly.  Then she swallowed,
realizing what she'd said.  "I'm sorry."

        Now Iruka looked away.  "No," he said quietly.  "You're probably
right.  I wish... I wish I had been otherwise."  He fell silent.  "It
was... too easy to just ignore you, and let Mizuki handle everything.
I'm sorry."

        Sakura didn't know what to say.

        Iruka smiled sadly.  "Mizuki-sensei wrote on your final
evaluation that when a student as self-evidently bright as you are, with
no record of discipline problems, was ranked last in the class, it was
obvious that the fault lay with her teachers.

        "I imagine he was right."

        "There was..." Sakura swallowed.  "There was good enough
reason."

        "You're far too easy on us, Sakura-chan," Iruka said with a
shake of his head.

        Sakura looked at her half-eaten skewer of dango and took another
bite.  After a moment, Iruka reached out and took a skewer out of the
box for himself, and they ate in silence until the dango were gone.

***********************************************************************


        The moon shone brightly in a cloudless sky the encampment of the
Leaf team, one day's journey along the road to Wave Country.  Disarmed
and tied securely to a tree trunk, the Demon Brothers, once of the Mist,
did not sleep, hoping in vain for a chance to escape before they were
turned over to the closest Leaf guard post in the morning.  The bright
eyes of one of the three wolf-like dogs stayed on the pair, even as the
only other member of the the team awake, one of the male genin, poked
the dying embers of their campfire with a stick.

        Suddenly, he stood, wandering over to where the dog watched the
prisoners, and laid one hand on the dog's back.  The animal's eyes
flickered closed, and one of the Mist missing ninja stirred as much as
he could in his bonds.  "What are you doing, kid?" he asked, the first
either had spoken since they'd awakened after their capture.

        The genin didn't answer, his hands instead flicking through
seals.  White feathers that almost seemed to glow in the dim light
drifted downward over his teammates and their client.  The civilian
turned over on his back and began to snore.

        "Genjutsu," the other Mist hissed.

        The boy smiled, one hand reaching to his glasses to adjust them.
They caught the moonlight for an instant, glowing a harsh, too-bright
light.  "The Demon Brothers, Gouzu and Meizo," he announced, walking
over to the prisoners.  "Rumored to be employed by the Demon of the
Hidden Mist, Momochi Zabuza."

        "How did you -" Meizo began, only to cut off.

        "Ah," the genin sighed.  "It's been so long since I had a chance
to cut loose and... play."  He raised one hand, sickly green chakra
gathering around it.  "Please try to resist the interrogation," he said.
"I'd hate for this to be over too soon.  Feel free to scream, if it
helps.  My teammates won't hear.

        "And don't worry.  There won't be a mark on your body or a
memory of this in your heads when you wake in the morning."

***********************************************************************

Author's Random Ramblings

1) It's been a while since I wrote anything, huh?  Hopefully my skills
have not atrophied too much in the interim.

2) I'm aware that there have been major revelations about the nature of
the tailed beasts in canon since I last worked on this story.  I am not
planning to work those revelations into this story, but I'm not planning
to go out of my way to explicitly deny them, either.  It will take an
open mind and willingness to read between the lines, but you should be
able to consider those revelations to be true for this story if you
prefer.  Or not, if you don't!

3) As always, my thanks go out to everyone who commented on the drafts
of this chapter on The Fanfiction Forum and Space Battles.

Draft Started: March 04, 2012
Draft Finished: March 29, 2012
Draft Released: March 30, 2012