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#HEY REMEMBER THAT TIME DANZO TOOK OVER AS HOKAGE
secret-engima · 1 year
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Konoha’s orphan system
BACK AT IT AGAIN BOISSSSSSS. So a few people expressed interest in hearing me ramble about my HCs for Konoha’s orphan welfare system (aka more reasons to hate Sarutobi Hiruzen), so I GUESS I’M DOING THAT. Before we get into this, just know these are 100% HCs that only acknowledge canon long enough to kick it in the nuts. I *did* try to make it reasonably canon compliant so that it could work for multiple aus (yes ppl can use these HCs in their fics if they want, just credit me pls :)) but canon is barely compliant with itself so…
With that out of the way. ONWARD.
The Konoha Orphan Welfare System was established by Tobirama sometime before the First Shinobi War, likely around the time there was a population boom of civilian inhabitants that were not tied to any shinobi clans. Now shinobi clans all have their own system for caring for in-clan orphans (some better, some worse), but the civilians, and specifically the rising population of civilian born shinobi … didn’t have that. If the parents died and there either wasn’t any close family to take them in or the close family that remained were somehow unable/unsuitable for it, then you had kids on the streets and that is both against the literal reason for Konoha’s founding and also a security hazard, so Tobirama set up the orphan system in a way that could be expanded upon as the population required going forward.
The first layer of the system are the Konoha orphanages. While there was likely only one or two to start with in Konoha’s early days, by now there have to be more. Depending on where you estimate Konoha’s total population sits (I have been informed that canon references like- 80k exactly once?? But I don’t remember and I cannot find it on the wiki so *yeets*) I’m going to spitball and say there is somewhere around 10 large orphanages in Naruto’s time. That is probably nowhere near enough orphanages but in CANON we have Literally One so baby step improvements people.
Now, when a child of civilian or shinobi parents is orphaned, there’s a call put out in Konoha (and *only* Konoha, again, ninja security concerns) for relatives who can come take the child. If no one steps forward in a week’s time, then the child is put into the orphanage system. During wartime, this layer of the system tends to get overcrowded for … obvious reasons, especially with refugee children like Kabuto being shuffled into the orphanages alongside born Konohans. Any child from infancy to age 6 (academy starting age) lives in these orphanages under the care of the Matrons who run it, some of whom are civilians, but a good portion are actually retired shinobi (male and female, similar to nurse, the term is gender neutral in this context), I will come back to that in a hot second. Now, during wartime, again, this system can get backed up and so you’ll have kids above the age of 6 still living there as was the case with canon Kabuto. But when *not* clogged by a refugee/orphan influx, the next stage of the system are the Orphan Apartments.
At the age of 6 (or when there are openings during overcrowded times), kids are sat down by the Matrons and given the choice to join the Ninja Academy or not. Obviously since this is a shinobi village they are encouraged to take that route, but they are actually allowed other options, and kids who have things like physical disabilities are sometimes encouraged to stay out of Academy instead. Whether they are in Academy or not, they are then moved out of the orphanage they live in and moved into the Orphan Apartments.
Orphan Apartments are multistory buildings funded by Konoha and consist of a base floor with a common kitchen, common washroom for clothes, and storage room for extra blankets/bedding/etc. The floors above that are small, one room apartments, 11 per floor, as well as a group shower room (the apartments have water closets). 10 of these are given to the kids, one per apartment (barring twins/triplets/etc, who share an apartment), and the 11th belongs to the Floor Caretaker. The Floor Caretakers are all retired shinobi who have some reason for no longer being able to take missions, either ones who willingly chose to retire (rare) or ones who have lost limbs or suffered some other kind of disability and are no longer considered fit to serve on missions above a D-rank.
The Floor Caretakers are in charge of making sure the 10 kids on their floor are fed and healthy, as well as teaching them basic life skills like budgeting their orphan allowance, how to safely use appliances like washers/dryers, how to cook basic healthy meals, etc. They also help them with schoolwork if necessary and crucially, for the Academy students, teach them additional chakra exercises, weapon basics and other skills that the clan children would already have been taught, in order to help ensure the orphans aren’t all left in the dust by their counterparts. For Academy students living in the Orphan Apartments, they will be there until they graduate, at which point they will be moved to a genin apartment complex (there are lots of apartment complexes that cater to a specific rank of shinobi, with each rank having a set rent based on the average “a shinobi of this rank should be able to make at *least* enough to handle this on top of food” income. Of course, if an orphan is adopted pre-graduation, they will move instead into the home of their new family, freeing up the apartment for another orphan out of the orphanage.
Speaking of ADOPTION.
Any child in the orphanage or orphan apartments is up for adoption, obviously, but most adoptions don’t happen until a kid moves into the orphan apartments and has been added to either the Academy track or not. The Floor Caretakers compile regular reports on each kid on their floor to show to interested (and vetted) potential parents. Many clans choose to add new blood via adoption of a promising orphan rather than relying on marriage (though it is likely if the orphan marries later it will be to someone who has the clan blood), and will send discreet shinobi members to observe (spy) on the prospective kids for a second opinion rather than solely rely on the Floor Caretakers’ reports.
Children who are not on the Academy track tend to get adopted out more often than their shinobi counterparts, this is because children who are not going to Academy are instead encouraged to become an apprentice of one of the many professions keeping Konoha running. Adults who take an orphaned apprentice also become their legal guardian in the eyes of Konoha, until they have achieved mastery or reached the age of 17, whichever comes first, and are required to be able to adequately house, clothe, and feed any apprentice they seek to take before they are allowed to adopt/apprentice them.
Shinobi clans will often keep a close eye on non-Academy orphans as much if not more than Academy orphans, as each clan does have civilian specialties to pass on and enough shared resources to enable the adoption fairly easily. Apprenticed orphans are expected to work to pay off their “debt” to Konoha for 5 years, during which up to a third of any income they make will be taxed to Konoha. As apprentices *are* paid during the latter half of their apprenticeship, it’s usually expected that the apprentice will still be living with and at least partially provided for by their guardian/master during those years of service and so aren’t at risk of being taxed right out of house and home or anything. The point is to make more artisans and masters of needed crafts, not create a homeless population that poses a security risk remember.
Orphans who are either Academy students or apprentices can also be Sponsored. A sponsor is different from a formal adoption, and adopted orphans don’t lose their Sponsor if they are adopted down the line. Sponsors are … well basically anyone who has good standing in Konoha and at least *some* money to back it up. These can be retired jounin, retired *ANBU*, civilians who’s family have been in Konoha for at least 3 generations, or businesses who have been in Konoha for more than twenty years (and also aren’t owned by a new resident to Konoha, again, paranoid ninja security reasons). Sponsors can only sponsor up to three orphans at a time. A Sponsor will provide additional funds for clothing, equipment of the orphan’s intended profession (shinobi tools/protective mesh for Academy students, tools for any apprentices of a certain profession), as well as additional learning opportunities.
To use an Academy student for an example, a sponsored Academy orphan will be able to petition their Sponsor for money to pay for better equipment, and if they take an interest in a specific skillset, the Sponsor will use their influence to help procure additional training or mentorship in that skillset. An Academy orphan with a sponsor who takes an interest in becoming a kenjutsu practitioner, for example, won’t have to wait and hope their future genin sensei is proficient in a sword. Instead they can petition their Sponsor, who can then use either money or connections to secure a teacher in kenjutsu. Sponsors, in turn, can expect something in return once the Academy student graduates. For civilian Sponsors this is *usually* just being given priority by that shinobi for any missions they put forth in the future (or a discount for services rendered if the orphan is a civilian apprentice instead of a shinobi). Business establishments also get discounts or priority treatment from the orphans they sponsor. Some businesses that employ shinobi on the regular as security intentionally Sponsor orphans who only want to become career genin or chuunin, since those are far more willing to take “boring” long term jobs than a shinobi looking to climb the ranks and become a jounin (and are less likely to be pulled and sent off on a risky A or S-rank down the line).
Jounin who are retired also use this system as a roundabout way of passing on their skillset or encouraging talented young shinobi without having to worry about actually adopting a kid. ANBU agents in particular don’t necessarily have time or the mental balance to adopt a kid, but if an orphan catches their eye, they can Sponsor them to help them get the resources to excel, whether or not that kid ever grows up to join ANBU.
Okay so. With all that- mostly covered and hopefully I’m not forgetting any gaping holes in my worldbuilding, you might be wondering “how does Naruto’s and Sasuke’s horrible childhoods fit into this???” To which I say:
Shimura Danzo and Sarutobi Hiruzen.
Remember that bit I said earlier? That *all* orphans in the orphanage and orphan apartments are up for adoption so long as they live there? Remember how I also mentioned that *clans* usually have their own in-clan system for dealing with clan orphans and so those don’t get put in Konoha’s system? Welllll.
To start with Naruto: Naruto by rights *should* have never entered the orphan system, since he has a godfather (Jiraiya) and presumably a godmother (I do not know if it’s *canon*, but the fanon I see everywhere is Mikoto, which makes sense considering she was canonically good friends with Kushina). But Jiraiya is a (horrible no good waste of space) spymaster who lives on the road and Mikoto is an Uchiha, which Danzo has been subverting for years and in fact was still subverting *while* the Kyuubi was rampaging everywhere. Iirc he’s the one who ordered the Uchiha to not engage and instead stay back and guard the civilian bunkers, which led to a lot of rumors (that he also started) about the Uchiha’s “suspicious” involvement in the Kyuubi attack. Hiruzen is a pushover when it comes to his old “friends”, we see this in canon, and especially to Danzo, so it’s no wonder why Mikoto was never allowed to claim custody of Naruto even if you fanon that she was his godmother and had a legal right to him.
So what about the other clans? Minato was incredibly popular and beloved, the other clans by rights should have been fully willing to take Naruto in, even with the whole- Kyuubi Jinchuuriki business. But then you have to consider the Politics™ of the situation. Jinchuuriki are considered less people and more living nuke repositories. We see this all over canon, in literally every village. If a Jinchuuriki’s identity is known, they are shunned and feared. So handing Naruto over to another clan would not, politically, have been seen as giving a child into the custody of someone who can raise him, but rather handing *one* clan the keys to immense power that the other clans wouldn’t be able to fight against. Massive power imbalance. Which Hiruzen wouldn’t want in the wake of the Kyuubi attack and then like 3 years later the Hyuuga Incident, and Danzo certainly wouldn’t want because he’s a paranoid old coot who thinks that the only person who can be trusted with ultimate power is himself. So Naruto is, politically, kind of impossible to adopt without majorly upsetting the power balance of the clans.
So. If we want to be *generous* and assume Hiruzen didn’t default directly to sticking Naruto in a shoddy apartment on his own when he was a literal infant, what he probably did was try to loophole his way out of the situation by not revealing Naruto’s parentage to anyone if he could help it and submitting Naruto into the orphan system during the high influx of post-kyuubi orphans in the hopes that Naruto would skate through unnoticed until Hiruzen could either arrange for a civilian family to adopt him or just hope that Naruto can slide by unnoticed in the system until he’s a genin and leaves the orphanage/orphan apartments.
Cue red-eyed t-posing Danzo meme. Because of course Danzo wouldn’t want a “weapon” like Naruto to fall into the hands of cushy civilians. Danzo is at fault for the entire campaign to smear and isolate and then kill an entire founding clan of Konoha, spreading the rumors that Naruto is actually the Kyuubi in human form or other such things is absolutely within his preferred method of isolating perceived problems. So Danzo has a few key people leak Naruto’s existence as Not A Normal Child throughout the village, causing a grieving, traumatized village to pick him as their scapegoat of choice, which meant Naruto would never be adopted by civilians. Because the civilians would either hate him or be too afraid of the reprisal of their neighbors if they went near him. With the civilian option shredded, and also the anonymity that could have let him skate through the orphan apartments unadopted until his genin years also destroyed, Hiruzen’s options are then “have this child raised outside the system entirely” or “give the child to Danzo and Root” and Hiruzen at least had the braincells to realize giving his old friend who has tried to murder him in the past a *whole entire Jinchuuriki* was a terrible idea. So into a slummy apartment all on his own the toddler goes. As for why it was a slummy apartment and not being raised by Hiruzen himself?
*Points back to the clan power imbalance thing*, *points at Hiruzen being a pushover doormat who let Kumo behead a HYUUGA TWIN BROTHER OF THE CLAN  HEAD to avoid conflict*.
As for Sasuke, very similar deal. Konoha’s system was never set up with the total annihilation of a clan in one fell swoop in mind. A mass genocide like that was just- never meant to happen. Sure clans can dwindle and die out during wartime (see- the Hatake clan), but that was not an instant process, there is supposed to be time for a dwindling clan to see the worst coming and prepare for it, make arrangements for what they want to happen to any orphaned kids if the clan adults all die out. Sasuke didn’t have that, and the Uchiha *had* no system in place. Arguably if they had a system for such a catastrophe in mind it likely would have been an agreement between them and the Senju, that either clan would take on the orphans of the other if the worst should happen. But by that point the Senju clan is just Tsunade, who has already run for the hills years ago.
Once again, Sasuke got treated less as a child in need of help and more as a political piece that no one could claim without causing a riot among the other clans for the imbalance. Now I’ve seen different fanon on if Sasuke grew up in the empty clan compound or had an apartment in Konoha, and canon has … literally *both* interpretation depending on *what flashback episode you are watching* so either Sasuke got taken out of the compound and moved into a genin apartment that Hiruzen paid for out of guild (not orphan apartments because again, anyone in there is available for adoption by legal default), or Sasuke just had to suck in up and live with ghosts for 6 years, which did his head NO FAVORS.
ADD TO THIS is Danzo again, who categorically would not want Sasuke to get help of any kind. Because Sasuke is a loose thread that he can’t take care of himself. Canonically, before Itachi leaves after the clan is dead, Itachi goes to Danzo and says something like “you do anything to Sasuke and I will come for your head and air all of your dirty laundry to Konoha on my way in”. If Danzo is seen taking Sasuke into ROOT, or killing him, or harming him, then Itachi will come for him. But if Sasuke is just … benignly neglected by Konoha as a whole to the point of death or defection … well that’s not his fault. His hands are tied.
I could *also* at this point go on a long ramble of my personal hcs that it’s REALLY INTERESTING that Shippudden introduces the glorified radar seal keeping track of any intrusion into Konoha and yet Orochimaru (who has worked with Danzo before to commit inconvenient warcrimes) and Sound Four (who work for Orochimaru) managed to get in multiple times specifically to try to kidnap and subvert Sasuke (thereby taking him out of Konoha without Danzo being to blame and making it far more likely he will be killed by a third party and thus is no longer a loose thread in Danzo’s machinations). And yes I know it’s actually just an example of Kishi’s swiss cheese worldbuilding but I just went on a 3k rant about an orphan system I made up wholesale to deal with those holes SO. But I think I’ve rambled enough for one post so I will leave that there.
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Smoke and Ash - ShiSaku
A/N: This is part of this AU where Tsunade and Sakura in a non-mass setting make an active attempt to take out Danzo. Sakura goes undercover in ROOT. 
It’s also connected to this snippet. 
//
Shisui never really knew his grandfather. He’d heard stories of him from his father, who’d barely known him. His grandfather, he heard, disappeared one night. There was no body.
He never returned.
His grandfather’s death haunted his father till his dying day, and Shisui had never quite taken well to people in his life disappearing without a trace. Wandering. Least of all, her.
“Imagine,” Shisui remembered his father say. “Imagine standing at that door, and he’d reach down to pat your head and tell you that he’s going to teach you how to throw shuriken at the board, and the next thing you know… he’s gone.”
Shisui never really understood the feeling until he was sitting on the couch of the Hokage’s office, waiting for the Hokage to return, waiting for any any confirmation of Sakura’s whereabouts or something. A sign. Anything.
He ran his hand through his hair.
If he’d been a brasher and bolder ninja, he’d be out the door before anyone or everyone could stop him. He’d be out trying to find her.
But the sinking feeling of her potential betrayal was weighing his feet down on that couch. What was she doing with ROOT shinobi? Could she have been that woman who saved Kabuto? Whose side was she on? The Hokage said that she had answers. She asked him to wait.
He buried his face in his hands. 
She had always been such a wanderer, hadn’t she? He thought.
She was a little girl of three when he first met her. She’d leave her mother’s hand to go chase a butterfly. Through the crowds, and through the set of legs and busy carts and end up lost all the time.
He was only ten, and he was sharper.
“Hey.” He crouched. “Where are you going?”
She’d scrunch up her face.
“Butterfry,” she’d say. With a mind of her own, she’d walk past him, while he’d grab her by the collar. There was a woman missing her kid somewhere, he thought. He had to get her back home to that woman who’d be crying for her child.
“Oi!”
For most of his life, Shisui spent it in being a silent watcher over the village. Over her. Sakura, on the other hand, when she returned from her trip, was vibrant breath of energy. She couldn’t help but attract attention to herself with her caring personality. 
She was the Godaime’s second coming. She flitted in and out of the rooms of the hospital. 
She stopped being a child long ago, and she had grown to become unimpeachable. 
It took him perhaps eighteen years to realize that this was just one face of Haruno Sakura. 
The door to the Hokage office was pushed open, and it pulled him out of his thoughts.
“Shisui?” He looked up to see Sasuke. “Is it…true?”
“What do you mean?” Shisui asked carefully. Tsunade ordered him not to keep it brief with anyone—more specifically an Uchiha and Kushina’s brat—and tell them half-truths.
“Is she dead?” Sasuke asked. Sasuke eyes were wide, his sharingan was on, and he was clenching his fingers. “Please… tell me she isn’t.”
This was cruel, Shisui thought. 
“She’s not dead,” Naruto was saying. He was pacing circles on the carpet floor. “She’s not dead. Sakura-chan is too stubborn to die! Maybe… we’re just reading it all wrong. She’s…missing.”
“Where did you hear this?” he asked carefully.
Sasuke was staring at him strangely. It was calculative, and at the same time, it was blank. His blazing sharingan was the only reminder that Sasuke would break down any moment. He was trying to figure him out.
“Sasuke,” he said slowly. “Where did you hear this?”
“I—” He held out a crunched letter between his hands. “Her mother found what seems to be a suicide note… in her diary… The ANBU stormed her room for her items. They informed her she was on official business, and well, I was on patrol at the time. I—”
Shisui calmly took out the note, and he felt his blood ringing in his ears. Suicide note kept playing like a broken recorder as he read. 
“It finally comes to an end,” she said. “My five years of hard work. The trap is placed. The rat will be flushed out. Here comes the wave of retribution. If I don’t survive this, please let it be known that I lived and loved and didn’t regret. I’m ready to die in hopes that the rat will meet his executioner.”
His breath caught in his throat.
“That’s… not a suicide note,” Naruto said. 
“How do you know, Naruto?” Sasuke had a frantic edge to his barb. “You’re a fucking moron.”
“Sasuke!” Naruto snapped. “Now’s not the time for this—”
“The hell it isn’t. She’s fucking missing. There’s ANBU flying around. Kakashi’s not in his apartment—” Sasuke gripped Naruto by the shirt front. Naruto didn’t flinch. “Your optimism is not helping.”
“Optimism?” Naruto repeated. His eyes burned blue. “Optimism?” He laughed uneasily. “Why aren’t we out trying to find her? She can’t have gone far.”
“This is not a suicide note, Sasuke,” Shisui said quietly. Both of them turned to look at Shisui. He glanced back at the letter.
“Why did I do this? Because I’m duty bound to avenge honest Konoha Shinobi who gave their lives in service. But apart from that,” he continued to read through the ringing silence. “I do have some selfish intentions. He will attack the man I love.” His mouth went dry. “I am willing to die in hopes that he lives.”
“She’s not dead,” Shisui continued quietly. He lowered the letter and stared down at the floor. “She can’t be.” His voice cracked. “I won’t…fucking believe it.”
No body. She was just gone. Not her. Not her. This was some cruel twist of fate—
“When you gentlemen are done,” he heard a cool voice at the doorway. Tsunade stood there. She leaned against the door-frame. “We have news.” All three of them perked up their heads. She strode past them towards her desk.
Behind her was Kakashi—who casually strolled in after Tsunade—and he had an eerie smile on his face. Kakashi smiling would not have been so eerie, if it wasn’t covered in blood.
“Sasuke, Naruto,” he said. “I would have been expecting you. Not this soon.”
“Kakashi,” Sasuke snapped. “Now’s no time for your jokes. Where the hell were you? We’ve been trying to find you for an hour now.”
“Are you bleeding, Kakashi?” Naruto interrupted. ���What the hell is happening?”
“Oh.” Kakashi brushed his thumb against his cheek. “This isn’t my blood, Naruto.”
“What happened to Sakura?”
“Calm down,” Kakashi sighed.
“Calm down?” Sasuke repeated.
“Yes,” Kakashi said. “Take a seat. We have to talk, don’t we, Hokage-sama?”
There was glint in Kakashi’s eye—one which Shisui had rarely seen. He was always a mysterious ANBU who preferred his privacy and Jiraiya’s Icha Icha novels. He was hard to read, and hard to identify. The thing is, Shisui respected Kakashi and his Hokage.
That was the only thing stopping him from lunging at them for answers to his questions.
“Let’s confirm one thing,” he said quietly. “Is she alive?”
Tsunade glanced at him.
“She’s alive, yes. She just contacted me. She’s heading towards Suna—”
Naruto rose up, but Tsunade held out a hand. He froze. “—she’s headed towards a potential ally. That was her last message to me nearly fifteen minutes ago through Katsuyu, who’s currently the only source of communication between us.”
He felt his breath ease in. “There were…” he paused. “There were so many ROOT shinobi. How did she manage to escape?”
Tsunade smirked. “Are you seriously doubting my apprentice?”
Kakashi had a crinkle in his eye. “I’m sure Shisui respects Sakura’s capabilities as does everyone else in this room, Hokage-sama. He’s sincerely however baffled—”
“Enough, Kakashi,” Tsunade snapped. “Have you not listened to anything I said? She’s just singlehandedly dismantled one of Konoha’s bloodiest factions, and she’s managed to incriminate a man who ought to have been imprisoned, but he’s consistently hidden evidence. Why do you think he left the village?” Tsunade said. “He’s compromised.”
 “And he’s going after her!” Kakashi snarled. Naruto and Sasuke glanced wordlessly between their Hokage and Kakashi. “Help us all if she’s not dead in a few days.”
Tsunade sighed. She rubbed her head.
“We have work to do. Naruto. I’ll be blunt. Sakura’s uncovered your father’s killer,” she glanced at Shisui. “And your grandfather.”
Thick silence followed. 
“And that man is Shimura Danzo, long story short,” Tsunade said. “If we’re not careful, this could actually turn into a war. So Kakashi was ordered to capture him.” 
“—and unfortunately,” Kakashi said. “I ran into some traps. He knew.” 
No one questioned Kakashi on what the traps were. 
“Again,” Kakashi said in response to Sasuke’s uneasy look. “Not my blood.” 
“Which means,” Tsunade said. “Sakura’s currently isolated. She’s running from him to allies in Suna. She says she’ll lay low. Her only point of contact is me through Katsuyu.” 
“Right,” Sasuke said. “Which means we leave soon?” Naruto glanced uneasily at Kakashi. 
“No,” Tsunade said. “People leaving in and out of the village right now are likely being trailed. Two of my ANBU reported being followed.” 
Shisui sighed. 
“Which means, Danzo knows that we’re going to aid her. His goal is her death. She knows something about him, he’s realized. Something which could very well lead to his death. No,” she said. “Wait until we—” she glanced at Kakashi “—dismantle all traps.” 
“Noted,” Kakashi said coolly. 
“And despite your strong feelings about her incompetence, please note that she’s not the same doe-eyed genin that you took under your wing—”
“Doe-eyed.” Kakashi repeated. “You’ve got to be kidding me—” 
She cut him off.
“The point is,” Tsunade snapped. “Your bloody job for the next few days—all of you—is to make sure Sakura’s blood, sweat and tears doesn’t go to hell by your rash chivalry. Danzo’s roots run deep in this bloody village, and they are lying in wait for an opportunity. He’s been here for a long time.” 
“What’s that mean?” Naruto asked.
“The village could be compromised,” Sasuke answered for him. “Internal security could be compromised.” 
//
“Kakashi,” Shisui said. “You need to listen to the Godaime. She’s right. We need you. You can’t be angry about this forever.” 
He wasn’t angry, he was just tired. He was tired of all the secrets. All the lies. 
Kakashi looked up at him slowly.
“I’m not angry at Hokage-sama,” he said. “I’m angry at myself, mostly.” There was something in his tone. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sakura’s mission was supposed to be mine, but Minato refused to let me take it. It would be too dangerous, he said.” 
He sighed heavily again.
“So when I see her… When I see the Godaime trusting her with this, it makes me wonder if Minato-sama thought I was incompetent… what makes Sakura more resilient to the darkness of the world?” 
You attacked the man I love. 
Shisui looked away as the letters burned themselves in his mind. 
“I don’t think that’s a question of resilience.”
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sumigakure · 6 years
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Well Then
To: @arrowsbane
From: @pwnie3
Title: Well Then
Rating: M
Wordcount: 8520
Prompt: In an AU where Orochimaru never took Danzo up on his offer for labs, Sarutobi dumps a trio of genetically-altered brats on him and hands him a ‘Teaching for Dummies’ book, which is not appreciated. Turns out, Orochimaru is pretty good with kids, but thinks he isn’t. Nobody else is buying that lie though.
Warning/Notes: I never thought I would have to tag a six-year-old for suicidal ideation but here I am. Friendly reminder that I love Kakashi and I wish my fingers didn’t know how to type independent of my will.
“Think about it,” Danzo says, then shunshins out of Orochimaru’s front garden.
The old man’s offer is tempting. A set of labs all to himself, all materials provided, not on paper anywhere. Sarutobi, ever Orochimaru’s moral compass in the absence of Jiraiya and Tsunade, has vetoed almost all of his ideas without even reading the full hypothesis. And he knows as well as Orochimaru does that if he had labs and materials, he would go ahead with his projects whether the Hokage gave him permission or not.
It’s one of the things Sakumo always said was the mark of a good shinobi– not following unjust orders, although he probably didn’t mean it to be used quite in this context.
Orochimaru traces the snake curled around his neck absently and his eyes remain fixed on the wall just to the side of where Danzo had been when he made the proposal two weeks ago. Sakumo, now three months dead by his own foolish, selfish hand, wouldn’t approve of this. Orochimaru may not know Danzo very well personally, but he knows enough about the man to figure out that the kind of experiments Danzo wants him to do won’t be the experiments Sakumo could be proud of.
When did this happen? When did he stop thinking in terms of what benefitted him and start using Sakumo’s approval as a benchmark for right and wrong?
There’s a knock on the door. Orochimaru snaps back to reality and gently reaches out with his chakra. He’s no sensor, he can’t track someone’s chakra footprint a hundred miles, but he can recognize a familiar signature ten feet away.
“Oro?” Kakashi’s voice is muffled, both by the door and his scarf. “You home?”
In a flash, Orochimaru opens the door. Kakashi is there, and judging by his clothes it’s a hot morning. His short sleeves show off the tattoos on his arms, and what’s visible of his face is flushed. Orochimaru makes a note to buy something thinner so Kakashi doesn’t pass out from the heat.
The boy doesn’t tell Orochimaru where he wants to go, but it’s easy enough to guess. Where else would he want to go with Orochimaru than Sakumo’s grave?
The majority of their walk to the cemetery is silent, punctuated only by a brief stop at a flower stand. Orochimaru picks spider lilies. Kakashi picks asters.
It is, perhaps, too late for Orochimaru to remember how terrible he is with children. When Sakumo was alive, it was easy to think of Kakashi as a small, grumpy version of his father, but with the man gone all Orochimaru can see is the five-year-old who’s lost his father.
Orochimaru clears his throat and hopes it doesn’t sound as awkward as he thinks it does. “How have you been, Kakashi?” It takes all of his willpower not to call him ‘Cub’, seeing as how, along with many other things in Kakashi’s life, the nickname likely died with Sakumo.
Kakashi makes a quiet noise. Orochimaru assumes it means something along the lines of ‘I’ve been okay’, as that has always been his answer to the question.
“How is your aunt?” Ah yes, the fifteen-year-old aunt Kakashi has been living with because Orochimaru doesn’t trust himself around children. “Is her team doing well?”
Kakashi grunts. “I guess. I think Mikoto is engaged now, but I’m not sure anyone else is supposed to know about that.”
With a faint sound of acknowledgement, Orochimaru files the information away. He can’t think of any occasion where the marital arrangements of the Uchiha clan will ever be of use, but intel is intel.
Just as the pair is about to enter the graveyard, there’s a shout from behind them. “Hey, Orochimaru!”
“That’s the guy Auntie has a crush on,” Kakashi supplies, murmuring. “Minato.”
Minato comes to a stop a respectful distance from Orochimaru. He pants a little from the exertion of, presumably, running around doing D-ranks all day. “Lord Sarutobi wants to talk to you.”
Orochimaru looks back at Kakashi, who’s eyeing Minato with something like scrutiny. “Is it urgent?” he asks like he doesn’t already know the answer.
Minato nods. Orochimaru is disappointed, no, angry. Angry at himself for not being able to put aside even this small amount of time for the boy who, for all his ineptitude, he loves with every ounce of his being.
Another glance at Kakashi. The boy shrugs. “It’s okay, Oro. I’ll be fine.”
He lays the bouquet of lilies in Kakashi’s arms with the asters. As Orochimaru is walking away, he hisses quietly at Minato. “If you wish to remain in Kushina’s good graces, you’ll keep an eye on Kakashi.”
Minato, who is most certainly recognizable as the ‘pretty boy’ Kushina referred to him as the last time Orochimaru found time to sit down with her, stands stock-straight and meets Orochimaru’s gaze– but only for a moment. Still, it’s better than most people manage. “Of course, Lord Yashagoro!” Then he runs over to walk behind Kakashi.
It takes little more than two minutes to get to the Hokage’s office, and inside Sarutobi has the audacity to be leaning back behind his desk and puffing on his pipe like he didn’t just take away precious time to be spent with the last part of Sakumo Orochimaru has.
Orochimaru stands in front of his old teacher and waits. After a few seconds, Sarutobi opens his eyes and sits up. “Ah, Orochimaru. I didn’t expect you here so soon. I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything?”
It’s been a long time since he wanted to punch something, as it’s never been his strong point, but in this moment there’s nothing he wants more than to break Sarutobi’s nose.  Besides, why else would he have come in through the window, if not because he was annoyed? Even if it’s not Orochimaru’s preferred method of entry, it does happen to be one of Sarutobi’s biggest pet peeves.
“Of course not, sensei. Your messenger told me it was urgent?” Orochimaru asks, hiding his anger behind a thin smile.
“Not nearly as urgent as Minato made it out to be, but it is somewhat time sensitive.” Sarutobi pushes a file across his desk. “These are your new orders, effective tomorrow.”
Orochimaru takes the file and opens it, expecting some kind of long-term information gathering mission having to with the war effort, and his eyes widen when the papers enclosed are the ones given out to prospective jounin teachers.
“Sensei, is this–”
“I am not mistaken. That is the correct file. I am assigning three children to your tutelage and, if you’ll be willing, your care.”
The assignment hits Orochimaru like a fist to the face. “I’m not sure if you recall, sensei, but while I have many and impressive talents, handling children is not one of them.”
Sarutobi smiles. “Orochimaru, believe me when I tell you that you are uniquely suited to this team over any other mission I could offer you. Do you recall the organization Root?”
Why yes, in fact your long-time friend recently offered me a very nice position within that very organization. “Yes. You disbanded it when you took office.”
The smoke from Sarutobi’s pipe circles the ceiling. “We discovered Root to very much be alive and kicking last week, under the coordination of Danzo Shimura. After a raid on their various locations, we found four children in a lab there. One killed himself when we tried to remove him from the laboratory, but the other three are currently in rehabilitation in the hospital. They are being entrusted to you, as several experts have assured me that putting them into the Academy would be counterproductive.”
Briefly skimming the mission file, Orochimaru finds it giving him that exact information under about five more layers of official jargon and emotionlessness than Sarutobi normally uses during these briefings.
“Until further notice, you will be off the active duty roster. Your first and foremost priority is acclimatizing these children to life outside of a laboratory.” Orochimaru nods along with Sarutobi as he translates the purple prose of the file. “Oh, and you’ll probably need this.”
Without thinking, Orochimaru takes the thing his teacher passes him and when he looks at the title, in a move he must have learned from Sakumo because he’d never done it before they started dating, he absolutely bristles with fury.
Well, if there was one thing being best friends with Jiraiya has taught Orochimaru, it’s self-control, and it happens to take every last ounce of that carefully-honed control not to put Teaching for Dummies through Sarutobi’s skull.
Sarutobi, for all his old man-ish airs, is no fool and does not have the memory of a goldfish, so he must recognize the calm detachment in Orochimaru’s face as the kind of thing he used to wear just before Jiraiya became best friends with the business end of Kusanagi.
“Meet me back here tomorrow at eight. You are dismissed.”
Kakashi is already out with his team by the time Sarutobi releases Orochimaru to his own devices– Kakashi’s fourth team in as many months, if Orochimaru’s impeccable memory serves him correctly– so he returns to the graveyard alone.
As much as he loves the boy, Orochimaru is glad to have the opportunity to visit Sakumo’s grave alone, and something tells him that maybe Kakashi feels the same. The grass is pressed down tight against the ground in front of Sakumo’s uniform headstone, and a few yards back there’s another spot where the ground is just as disturbed. The flowers have been rested carefully below the deep lines that form Sakumo’s name.
Orochimaru sinks to his knees fluidly. “I had an important meeting yesterday. I wore the blue yukata, the one you always said compliments my eyes.”
It’s a common enough practice for shinobi to talk to their dead loved ones, even if not quite the healthiest. Any passing civilian won’t question Orochimaru talking to the departed quite as much as they’ll question his choice of Sakumo Hatake, and it’s not the kind of thing any coincidentally present ANBU will feel the need to report.
But Orochimaru’s reluctantly-assigned Yamanaka psychiatrist says it’s a good way to grieve (and while she doesn’t outright say ‘I know you’re still mourning the absence of Jiraiya and Tsunade’, he hears it all the same) and he knows that ANBU Panther has been told under no uncertain terms that he’s to make sure Orochimaru talks to Sakumo a little bit. Though as with all things unfamiliar, the Snake Sannin takes to it with a fair bit of caution.
“Sarutobi has assigned me a group of children to train.” He shakes his head. “I suppose my only relief in this is that Jiraiya isn’t here to see it.” A pause, the kind he used to leave for Sakumo to say his piece. “It’s summer now, he’s been gone nearly nine months.”
Orochimaru has never believed that the dead linger, but when he closes his eyes he’s willing to pretend the wind playing with his hair is a tanned, scarred, calloused hand with the most gentle touch in the world.
He stands and brushes a few blades of grass from his clothing. He walks home in silence.
When Orochimaru sits down in his kitchen with a cup of tea in hand, he finally looks over the file Sarutobi gave him.
The first student, Akira Senju, age eleven, was kidnapped when small and her eyes were replaced with a set of stolen Sharingan. She was then pumped full of bijuu chakra siphoned off Lady Mito Uzumaki to see if the Sharingan could control bijuu as easily from within as well as without.
Orochimaru’s second pupil, Akane Uchiha, age twelve, is a half Inuzuka who was tattooed with some beautifully– the report on her doesn’t say it quite like that, but art is art no matter the canvas– elaborate seals that, according to the file, give her the ability to use the Mokuton.
The final child is Hikaru, age eight, was grown in a surrogate, and is the finest example of what happens when an Uchiha member of Root and a Senju member of Root both give over DNA for identification purposes and the DNA is instead used to make a baby. Heavily tested, very intelligent, not very emotionally stable, the boy is implied to be the “problem child” of the three.
Orochimaru puts down the file. From what he can tell, both the people giving the order and the researchers who worked on these children were clumsy. It seems like multiple, independent projects were being run of each child without regard for how the effects of the other experiments would skew their results. What’s Tsunade’s favorite saying? Too many cooks in the kitchen?
What’s done though, is done, and Orochimaru can’t do a thing to remedy the errors of fools. He stands from his chair.
The house is older than even Orochimaru’s parents, and it takes ridiculous effort to keep it in good condition, but if it has anything going for it then it has to be its sheer size. The Yashagoro clan has never been large, definitely not large enough to warrant a house so big, and for the last twenty years Orochimaru has lived here alone. He has no wandering relatives who drop in on a whim to see how well he’s grown up, no drunk friends taking over his house at ungodly hours, no quiet bedmates who wake him up with fluttering kisses and a laugh like rolling thunder. Not anymore.
There are spare futons tucked away in a closet, and while it’s hardly the kind of thing his mother would approve of using his abilities for, Orochimaru is pressed for time and hardly hesitates in using– this is the kind of play on words both his father and Jiraiya would find amusing– a fuuton jutsu to air out the bedding. Perhaps, if Sarutobi doesn’t come to his senses and reassign the children, Orochimaru will find sturdier, more permanent bedframes for them.
He doesn’t sleep. Instead, he wanders the many halls of the house and tries to memorize the silence, the solitude, the way this is the one place where he lets his footsteps echo into the night. He listens for the faint memory of his father’s laugh, his mother’s admonishments, and his old grandmother’s refusal to avoid the nightingale floors when she wandered in the middle of the night.
He wonders if these children will know any better.
Orochimaru shows up early to his old teacher’s office, and is not disappointed. Sarutobi is already waiting for him, sharing a cup of tea with three children who probably shouldn’t be as small as they are.
“Ah, Orochimaru!” Sarutobi exclaims. The three children turn around sharply, even the tiny little boy.
The files hadn’t included photographs. There hadn’t been time to get the photographer out to see them, nor would he have had clearance to do so if he’d tried. But aside from the activated Sharingan, the extensive tattoos, and the multitude of poorly-hidden scars, the children don’t look like anything special. The Senju girl looks like how he would expect a little Senju girl to look. The Uchiha-Inuzuka girl looks like how he would expect an Uchiha-Inuzuka to look. The Senju-Uchiha boy looks like how he would expect a Senju-Uchiha to look.
This is good, he thinks. The tattoos and scars are normal enough, not the kind of thing most people would glance twice at. The Sharingan will be easily hidden. At least they won’t have to grow up with the look of a half-dead pixie with too much purple eyeliner and a frankly unrealistically dark head of hair and all the stares that come with.
“These are your students,” Sarutobi continues. “Akira, Akane, and Hikaru. Children, this is to be your guardian.”
The half-Inuzuka girl, Akane, stands. The other two follow her lead. Though Orochimaru knows that these children have been kept apart until now, as per ANBU policy about test subjects, they have easily fallen into something like a pack formation with Akane at the head.
Orochimaru bows his head slightly, not breaking eye contact with Akane for a second. After a long pause, she does it back. Again, Akira and Hikaru follow her lead.
Sarutobi looks between the four of them and nods. “It seems my work here is done. Orochimaru, I’ll be by later with some paperwork.”
He takes this to mean that he’s been dismissed, and so Orochimaru gestures for the children to follow him. The whole way back to his house– on foot, using the not-yet-crowded streets to travel because he hardly remembers trusting himself on rooftops when he was their age and most certainly won’t put that faith in three strangers– they trail behind him at a respectful and regular distance. Though they haven’t spoken a word to each other, the three of them instinctively fell into a standard, if rough, team formation. Akira is at the center, keeping a careful eye on Orochimaru, and on either side she is flanked by Akane and Hikaru in some kind of bodyguard position.
The first two steps inside Orochimaru’s home are nightingale flooring, and while he treads lightly and with a certain kind of speed born of practice and watching snakes go across the boards silently, the children don’t know the house. As soon as Hikaru hears the first tremulous chirp of the floorboards, he jumps back and pulls the girls with him.
“Come now. It’s just a noise the floors make. Nothing to be scared of,” Orochimaru says in what he hopes is a teasing voice. “They’re not going to hurt you any more than the grass out there will.” Though, thinking about it, the grass (or rather, what the grass hides) will actually hurt them more than the floors.
Eventually, Orochimaru gets them into the kitchen, and only then does it occur to him that he only owns one chair and his table is too small for four people. He also owns a meager set of dishes that can only hold enough food for one, maybe two people if they have appetites as small as Orochimaru and Kakashi (how old is the food in his fridge? And come to think of it, is bread supposed to be blue-grey?). Well, those bowls are probably small enough to count as cups, right?
“Perhaps,” Orochimaru starts slowly, “a trip to the market is in order.”
Orochimaru hasn’t been a child in a long time, so he doesn’t know what they like to eat. When he went out shopping with Sakumo, it always fell to Orochimaru to keep Kakashi occupied, and thus he was never really sure of what Sakumo bought for Kakashi– not to mention that Kakashi is significantly younger than Orochimaru’s students and also likely has very different preferences.
Orochimaru himself is a simple man. He buys spices when he runs out and a dozen eggs every week, ham when he can get it, and everything else comes from his mother’s garden. His parents raised him to eat what was put in front of him without complaint and that mostly carried over into his adult life.
So what do children like to eat?
“What would you like?” he asks them. All three heads jerk towards him simultaneously. “To eat.”
For a long moment, there’s silence from the three of them, but then it’s Akira who answers first. “One of the researchers in charge of me used to bring dango when I was cooperative.”
“One time someone brought me pretzels,” Akane says.
“They let me have strawberries once.” Hikaru rounds out the bunch.
The bakery sells five kinds of pretzels and strawberries are in season, and by the time the four of them make it to the dango shop Hikaru has eaten almost half the container and Orochimaru has reminded him three times that eating the strawberry hulls isn’t something people generally do.
As soon as they enter the shop– which is abuzz with people as always, seeing as how Shouta Mitarashi makes the best dango in the village and everyone knows it– the place hushes significantly. Civilians are always put off by Orochimaru’s presence no matter where he goes, and while it’s a trifling matter to be invisible in a crowded marketplace that same innocuity becomes impossible in a small, enclosed space.
Akira, Akane, and Hikaru fall into battle stance at the attention. Their shoulders square, their limbs relax, and Akane has two fingers on the kunai in her belt. Orochimaru says nothing; he just strides forward– the crowd shies away from him like he’s diseased– picks up a few boxes of sweets, and hands the money over to the owner without speaking a word.
He, and the children too, are silent the whole way home. They do not step on the nightingale floors a second time.
His three students eat their food quietly, and Orochimaru makes himself a pot of tea. When he has finished his first cup, he speaks.
“The first thing you will learn in this village is that no-one is going to be kind to you. I do not know what conditions you were in before or how they treated you there, but it will be different and worse out here. You will be feared, and that fear manifests as anger, and you may have to deal with the outlet of that anger. Strangers will hate you for no other reason than your association with me. If you wish for me to find you a different caretaker, tell me and I will do so.”
Akane crunches on another pretzel. Hikaru carefully separates the hull from the rest of his strawberry and sets it on a paper towel. Akira puts a whole skewer’s worth of dango in her mouth at once. They say nothing.
Orochimaru pours himself a second cup of tea. “Very well then,” he sighs. “It is my job to teach you how to interact with other people. I will not be lenient with your training. Starting tomorrow, you will wake at dawn and training will last until I say it stops. Do you understand?”
They nod, and if Orochimaru has the barest hint of a smile on his face, then no-one has to know.
The next morning, though waking the children by way of snake messenger was fun and he’ll never let himself forget Akira’s screams, Orochimaru faces a certain problem. After watching the children make a mess of training ground 6, he decides to pit them against each other and quickly finds that watching Akane and Akira go at it is something like how he imagines a timid Tsunade would approach Jiraiya if Jiraiya didn’t know how to control his temper and also thought he could take on Tsunade at full strength.
In short, it’s giving him a headache.
Akira has a certain kind of inhuman strength that tends to show itself in anyone with more than a drop of Uzumaki blood, and Orochimaru is quickly realizing that there’s no way she’s not at least one quarter Uzumaki– maybe it’s a byproduct of Lady Mito’s jinchuuriki chakra?– but the Senju in her negates the red hot Uzumaki blood in her.
Similarly, Akane has exactly the temper Orochimaru would expect from the offspring produced by an Uchiha and an Inuzuka and the control over her anger to match. Like most Uchiha her age she has all the musculature of a finely-carved twig, but more than enough dramatics to make up for it.
“Come on, I can take it!” Akane shouts from the proper battle stance Orochimaru just corrected her on. “Come at me already!”
Akira looks to Orochimaru with something he thinks is a question on her face. He nods minutely at her. “But…” she trails off.
The other girl makes a very loud, very frustrated noise that only reinforces Orochimaru’s belief that Jiraiya is dead and his soul now exists in the body of a twelve-year-old girl. “Come on!”
Akira flexes her hands and curls them into fists. She pulls back one arm, then throws an undercut–
Which connects just under Akane’s ribs and throws her against a tree twenty feet away. She collides with a sickening crunch which sounds suspiciously like bones breaking and it takes everything in Orochimaru’s power not to flinch at it.
Ah yes. Definitely reminiscent of Jiraiya and Tsunade’s earliest interactions.
Hikaru crunches down on a strawberry flavored biscuit stick louder than necessary and shoots Orochimaru a look he can catch out of the corner of his eye. With a sigh, Orochimaru stands and walks over to check on Akane.
She coughs, then lets out a long, painful groan. “Sensei, am I dead?” She whines.
He hums. “Not yet.”
“Can you make me dead?”
To his own surprise, Orochimaru laughs. It’s small, barely more than a chuckle, but it’s there and it surprises Akane just as much as it does Orochimaru himself. “Only if you want me to.”
For two full seconds, she’s quiet, then she reaches up with one arm and lets slip a thready “please”.
The next morning, if it can even be called that yet, Orochimaru wakes to the incessant tapping on his window. The hawk sitting on his sill has a message tied to it’s leg. He lets the bird in and takes the scroll from the leather tube, letting the hawk back out as soon as he does.
It’s a summons for tea from the Hokage. Orochimaru huffs out a breath and briefly considers whether or not he could get away with killing Sarutobi, and when he figures that now probably isn’t the best time to contemplate murder he decides to just get ready for the day. He sets out breakfast for the children– all three still asleep in their rooms– and sets one of his summons by each bedside to keep watch.
Sarutobi is waiting for him in his office with a pot of Orochimaru’s favorite tea already sitting out. It burns Orochimaru in places he can’t describe to think that after ignoring him for so long and then dumping three children even more socially stunted than Orochimaru himself, all Sarutobi can do is set out tea and play
“Ah, Orochimaru. Sit down, I’m glad–”
Orochimaru does not sit. “Spare me your pleasantries. Why have I been summoned here?”
Sarutobi sets down his cup with a sigh. “How are the children?”
“They are making progress. Considering how long I’ve had them, they’ve adjusted well, though I’m certain that they would do better under a different teacher who knows better how to deal with children. Given time, I believe they will become a strong team for almost any kind of mission.”
The Hokage nods. “Very well. If there is nothing else to discuss…” he trails off to give Orochimaru space to say something more. When he doesn’t, Sarutobi continues. “Then I believe you are dismissed.”
Orochimaru leaves.
As soon as he’s out of earshot, Sarutobi looks down at the reports on his desk from Panther and Bear.
Subject’s methods are unorthodox, but effective. Advise that the team remain in his care and assign the Subject a second team upon current team’s graduation.
Subject interacts well with charges. Likely extenuating circumstances contributing to camaraderie. Advise not to assign a second team to the Subject.
Fox drops down from the rafters silently. “Sounds like he doesn’t know himself too well, huh?” she says.
Sarutobi steeples his fingers. “Perhaps it is because he knows himself too well, and it is blinding him to his own strengths.”
“Perhaps it is because he’s never had to interact with children.” Crow quips.
Goose hesitates. “…Perhaps it’s because no-one has ever trusted him with children before.”
“Sakumo did,” Fox mumbles after a moment. “Sakumo trusted him and Kakashi loves Orochimaru to death.”
“I think we can all agree that Sakumo Hatake is a special case in many respects, and his son follows closely in his footsteps,” Sarutobi says. “But in this, I too will follow Sakumo. Orochimaru is better with those children than he thinks he is.”
Crow hums, disinterested. ‘They day Orochimaru realizes that children follow him like lost puppies is the day I retire.”
Hikaru, Orochimaru finds, is like Kakashi. He rarely smiles, but when he does it’s all the more precious for it. He likes to disappear at odd hours, but can always be found napping peacefully in the grass by the Naka with empty cartons of fresh fruit stacked neatly next to his head.
Akane is happiest when curled up by a window on a rainy day. She prefers hot tea and a thick blanket and a good book over training in the cold any day, and every last one of Orochimaru’s summons agrees with her (he finds them sleeping once, in front of the fireplace and curled close under the blanket to Akane, though to protect her or for her body heat is unclear). But on the hot days where the sun is too bright to look at she can’t be pulled away from the fields for anything.
Akira is the outlier. She wants to be good, wants to be better. She has bright ambitions but hardly has the means to do so. She trains with Kakashi, who outstrips her in talent at every turn but is no match for her spirit. She is the one who asks to learn the obscure jutsus, the one who practices seals a thousand times before even trying to pump the chakra through them.
They have been in Orochimaru’s care for five months, and have not mentioned leaving once.
He finds himself stopping by the dango shop every three days, it seems, and the longer he shows up regularly the wider Mitarashi smiles at him. He has a regular order and everything. More and more, Mitarashi’s little daughter Anko– who can’t be much more than three years old, but Orochimaru’s never been good at pinpointing the ages of children– decides to talks to him about his day. In twelve years or so, she’ll be an excellent saleswoman if she doesn’t follow through with her interest in the poisonous flowers Hikaru likes to braid into Orochimaru’s hair.
It’s not just Mitarashi and his daughter that have taken a shining to Orochimaru. Vendors in the marketplace have gotten increasingly familiar with his larger purchases of meat, bread, and most importantly, fresh fruit, romance novels, and pretty yet practical clothing for a six feet tall fourteen-year-old girl.
It all comes to a head the day jounin start coming to him to ask if their teams can train together. The first one, Sabe Tachibana, is a large man, taller than Akira and twice as broad, who looks like he could crush Orochimaru’s head between two fingers if given the chance.
“My team is made up of three strong-willed boys that just graduated from the Academy on their first try,” he says. “They think they’re all that and a bag of sealing scrolls. I think they need to be put in their place before I can teach them anything, but for the life of me, I can’t get them to listen. They’ve been like this for all three weeks since graduation.”
Orochimaru smirks. “Oh, don’t worry, Tachibana. They’ll be at your beck and call before tomorrow is done.”
He pretends that he doesn’t notice the five other jounin watching the inter-team practice, where all three of Tachibana’s genin show up late while complaining loudly about the hour and not giving one whit of attention to the other team on the training field.
“Sensei, are those girls?” one of them asks, his tone about as demeaning as it can get. “I thought you said we’re gonna train with the best genin team in the village, not that you wanted to get in their teacher’s pants.”
“And we are, Koushi. This is the best genin team in the village,” Tachibana responds evenly. He doesn’t acknowledge the boy’s second statement.
Orochimaru makes sure his hair swishes as he turns to face the three boys and hopes he looks more male and less androgynous than usual today. “And I thought I was pitting my team against worthy opponents. I look forward to you trying to prove me wrong.”
Tachibana gently resumes control of the conversation. He gestures to Orochimaru. “Boys, this is Orochimaru Yashagoro. He’s got the finest first-year genin I’ve seen in a long time, so keep your guard up.”
“Don’t go too hard on them, you three. Leave at least some of their dignity intact,’ Orochimaru instructs as he turns to his team.
One of the boys scoffs. “Like we need them to. What harm can two girls and a baby do to us?”
Orochimaru sees the immediate shift in the way Akane, Akira, and Hikaru are assessing the situation.
“Sensei, are you sure we have to hold back?” Akane asks, sickeningly sweet. “I would hate for them to think we’re not giving our all.”
“Dignity is useless. All that matters is skill. If they have it, then we don’t need to go easy.” Hikaru looks up at Orochimaru. “Right, sensei?”
At Tachibana’s direction, the two teams settle themselves at opposite ends of the training field. Orochimaru’s team falls easily into battle formation and move away from each other. From his place at one edge of the field, Orochimaru can see Hikaru reaffirm his grip on the hilt of his sword, Akira flex her fists, and Akane finger a tagged kunai. Conversely, Tachibana’s boys are too relaxed and hold their kunai like toys– and they’re all only wielding kunai.
“It’s a miracle they graduated, with form like that,” Orochimaru mumbles to his fellow teacher. “What kind of test did you give them?”
“I put an apple on my head and had them throw kunai at me to get it off.”
“Were you at least moving?”
Tachibana’s flush is answer enough. He clears his throat. “You fight until incapacitation or surrender. On my mark!” he shouts, raising one hand. The instant his arm drops, the three boys are off towards Orochimaru’s stationary team.
The first one to get in range is closest to Akira. She throws a punch. The instant it connects, the boy realizes his mistake, but by then it’s too late. He flies fifty feet before he hits the ground and then skids another ten before coming to a stop.
She sucks in a breath through her teeth. “Sorry!” she calls after him.
The second one thinks it’s a good idea to go after Akane, who is, admittedly, tiny for her age and looks like an easy target. But the moment he steps into a three-meter radius, he freezes in place and all Akane has to do is walk up to him and push him over.
The third is perhaps the most foolish, because under any circumstances it’s a bad idea to approach a child holding a sword, but Hikaru is especially dangerous. It takes all of a second for Hikaru to strike out with his lead hand, drawing a thin red line across his opponent’s face and sending strands of his hair fluttering to the ground. The boy’s hand shoots up to cradle his cheek, but before he can even get it high enough Hikaru drops down low and sweeps the boy’s legs out from under him.
His head meets the hard-packed earth with a crack. With that, Tachibana steps out onto the field and ends the match.
“I hope that you remember this day as the day you got your collective asses beat by two girls and a baby. Got it?” Akane sneers. “And next time you assume our teacher needs to use his team to get access to dick, I’ll make sure you won’t have to worry about yours anymore.”
Other fresh jounin teachers almost start lining up with their teams.
The childrens’ first mission is small. He gives the missions room a collective heart attack when he enters and requests a C-rank with his team in tow. They must strike quite the image, he thinks. The Hidden Leaf’s own double-edged sword, accompanied by the unholy offspring of an Uchiha and an Inuzuka, an eight-year-old who carries himself like the most weathered of jounin, and an otherwise nondescript girl with brown hair and a set of blazing Sharingan.
The terrified chuunin behind the deck passes Orochimaru an assignment for a message run to the Fire Country capital.
“We have hawks for messages,” Hikaru states, but in the month since he came into Orochimaru’s care he’s learned to read between the lines with Hikaru.
“A hawk is faster than most shinobi, that’s true. But hawks are easier to intercept than we are. If time is of the essence, the village will send a hawk. When security is valued over speed, they send shinobi,” Orochimaru says.
Two steps out of the gate, Akane trips over thin air and nearly sprains her ankle. This is the worst injury of the mission.
Orochimaru himself has been to the capital a scant few times, and the children have never left Konoha’s walls so while it’s always a treat for the Snake Sannin to see the city it’s nothing quite like the identical look of amazement that crosses all three of his charges’ faces.
The buildings in the capital are by far taller than anything in Konoha but the trees, of which there are few here. The marketplaces are more bountiful, full of all manner of things that just don’t make it to Konoha in large enough quantities– expensive teas imported from across the sea, delicate sheer fabrics that have no place in a shinobi village, household items imbued with seals that draw chakra from the environment to cook food faster or heat beds in the winter. The fresh flowers Konoha prides herself on can’t be found so easily here, replaced commonly by shining metal or fine Suna-blown glass replicas. The sturdy weapons the children know from their home are almost nonexistent, though Orochimaru does know where to get them if the need arises. Instead, tiny shops sell decorative knockoffs that won’t hold up for half a second in the field but look nice and shiny hanging on a wall.
“Can we come back someday?” Akira asks, once they’ve delivered their message and set off back to Konoha. She has three new shawls and a set of beautiful emerald jewelry in her bag, among other baubles.
“I certainly hope so!” the other girl exclaims. Akane’s found no less than five Uzushio fuuinjutsu scrolls sitting in a secondhand store and paid less than a quarter of what they’re worth.
Orochimaru smiles despite himself, looking at Hikaru. The boy is happily munching on some blackberries and has more cartons of fruit sealed away than Orochimaru cares to count.
“I don’t see why not.”
The next time Orochimaru has the opportunity to see Kakashi is on the boy’s birthday. He is six, and after the small celebration at Kushina’s apartment– complete with gifts Hikaru, Akane, and Akira had bought in the capital, because after their first meeting with the younger boy they had all become rather attached– Orochimaru takes Kakashi to visit Sakumo’s grave.
It’s not something he would ever do with his team, simply because they wouldn’t know the significance of it and he’s not in the mood to explain why his single best bonding activity with his kind of stepson is visiting Orochimaru’s ex-boyfriend’s grave.
Dust has formed on the headstone, so Orochimaru carefully brushes it away with one blessedly pale grey sleeve before setting down the bouquet he brought today. Orochimaru’s yellow camellias look nice with Kakashi’s white roses, and they look even prettier against the grey stone.
Neither one of them says anything until halfway back to Kushina and Mikoto’s apartment.
“I miss him,” Kakashi says, his voice painfully small and muffled by the mask Orochimaru just gave him. “Sometimes I wish he took me with him.”
Orochimaru’s blood runs cold. His heart stops beating for several seconds. His mouth is hanging open, and when he gathers the brainpower to realize he isn’t breathing, his next inhale shudders in his throat. Before he knows what he’s doing, Orochimaru drops to his knees and pulls the boy to him. There are tears leaking from his face into Kakashi’s silver hair.
He can’t say he hasn’t had the same thought. He wasn’t much younger than Kakashi when he lost his own parents, and both when they died– his father from sickness while his mother was on a mission she never came back from– and only a few months ago when Sakumo took his own life, the same idea plagued his every waking moment. Why didn’t I die from the epidemic too? Why didn’t Sakumo kill me as well as, instead of, himself?
“Kakashi, I’m sorry,” Orochimaru whispers. “I’m sorry the world had made you think that way.”
He remembers being six and being left alone in that big dark house because there was no-one to care for him. He remembers being thirty-one and watching as Kakashi was left alone in his own big dark house because his clan laws– the precious clan laws the village had to accommodate for fear of clans rioting– wouldn’t allow anyone outside his clan to do it. He remembers going to visit Kakashi every day for a month and getting turned away by ANBU at the door every single time until Kakashi finally told Orochimaru to stop coming.
Kakashi’s hands clench in Orochimaru’s hair. “Sometimes I wish I had died with Mom.” He’s quiet for a few moments. “You told me once that Dad killed himself because he was ashamed of how his choices were affecting me. So he would still be alive if I had died in the Massacre, right?”
Orochimaru had told Kakashi that about Sakumo so that he wouldn’t think that Sakumo hadn’t loved his son. What possessed the gods to twist Kakashi’s mind to misinterpret it so badly?
“Oh cub, I never meant for you to take it like that. I miss him too, but I never, ever wanted you to think like that.
“What your father did was foolish and wrong, and every day I wish that someone had been there to talk some sense into him. I wish that I hadn’t been out of the village that day. I was too kind the last time I spoke of your father. He thought that by taking himself out of the equation, the village wouldn’t project their hate elsewhere and that you wouldn’t be affected. In his haste to right what the village perceived as wrongs, he forgot that he was all you had. His actions were selfish and shallow, no matter how honorable his intentions happened to be. Don’t let yourself be dragged down by the choices of kind-hearted fools.”
Kakashi sniffs, then pulls away and wipes his eyes with one overly long sleeve. “Okay. That means to stop listening to Aunt Kushina then, right?”
Orochimaru chuckles low in his chest and ruffles Kakashi’s hair. “Don’t you go twisting my words, little one.”
“Then don’t give me words to twist,” the boy shoots back, a gentle smile in his tone. Orochimaru is sorry he can’t see it.
As with all things, it comes crashing down around his ears eventually.
It is either late at night or early in the morning depending on which child Orochimaru asks for the time, and all four of them have been summoned to the Hokage’s office.
“You asked for us, sensei.” Orochimaru states as he rises from the crouch he landed in. His children straighten up too behind him.
“Danzo has escaped captivity,” Sarutobi says. It’s unlike him to be so short, to use four words where he could make it boring with twenty. “I am confident in both your abilities and those of your team, but until Danzo is captured I am placing ANBU outside your house. It is likely he will come after the children and try to leave the village with them.”
Behind him, the air goes deathly still, and for one horrifying moment Orochimaru thinks that the children have scattered just from hearing Danzo’s name. If any of the reports he’s read– many of which he didn’t technically have permission to know about– are true, it’s a wonder they didn’t run for the hills.
“You are dismissed. ANBU Crow, Fox, and Goose will meet you at your home.” Sarutobi goes silent, looking down into his telescope jutsu’d crystal ball. Orochimaru stiffens at the names.
“Sensei, is there any significance to those three ANBU being assigned to our case?” Hikaru asks halfway back to the house in his attempt to break the tense silence– something he’s gotten better at in the past months.
Orochimaru nods gravely. “ANBU Crow, Fox, and Goose are the Hokage’s personal guards. That he’s reassigning them means Danzo is more dangerous now than he was before.”
“What was lesson fifty-one again? A desperate man is a dangerous man?” Akira supplies.
“And a dangerous, desperate man is a cornered man and cornered man is unpredictable,” Akane finishes, uncharacteristically somber.
“Sarutobi-sensei never told us stories about Danzo from his youth, but I think we all know there’s a reason why he of all people was the leader of Root. Be cautious,” Orochimaru warns. He feels like he’s being watched and he hates nothing more than being watched.
The instant he sets foot on the property, a shiver runs down his spine and he drops lower to the ground. He draws Kusanagi from its sheath. When he enters the house, he does it slowly and deliberately. The children follow his footsteps exactly.
The nightingale floor shrieks. Instantly, Orochimaru extends an arm and pulls his children behind him and brandishes Kusanagi.
Danzo looks worse for wear, like he’s probably been tortured. Whoever helped him escape T&I– because there’s no way he got out on his own, not on Itsue Morino’s watch– must have had some kind of medical knowledge, because the aging man’s injuries look half-healed.
“Don’t cause a fuss now, Orochimaru. Just give me the experiments and I’ll disappear,” Danzo says, just as calmly as if he was ordering lunch, but there’s a low hum of killer intent in the air. “This doesn’t have to be messy.”
Orochimaru bristles and bares his teeth. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s killer intent, and Danzo just doesn’t have the same dark, oily chakra that makes people shiver when they face Orochimaru on the battlefield. “Over my dead body.”
The elder scowls, but he draws a bloodied kunai from one tattered sleeve and leaps forward.
Orochimaru catches the blade with his own, and it doesn’t take much to force Danzo back. He may be older and more experienced, and the chuunin guarding his cell may have been weak, but Danzo’s been atrophying in a cell for six months while Orochimaru’s been training three energetic kids in how to fight and kill.
“I will be dead and buried before you lay another finger on my children. Do you hear me, Shimura?” Orochimaru snarls. He parries away the kunai again. “But don’t you worry–” a quick slice and a dull thump– “you’ll be gone before you get the chance.”
It’s a gentler death than a man like Danzo Shimura deserves, but Orochimaru is in no mood to play with delusional old men. He has no energy to call the Hokage and tell him of events. But if the three ANBU arrive not two minutes later and find nothing of the old man, well Orochimaru can’t control his snakes all the time. They are among the more fickle of summons, after all.
As if to show just how shitty his life is, Jiraiya gets mugged a scant two miles from Konoha.
He’s been away for three years, and before he can get home to his favorite bath house– full of his favorite patrons who he used to swear could smell him coming from a mile away and still hit him dead-on with their shoes– he gets jumped. And not just jumped, but jumped by three kids.
That’s it. He’s done. He just flops down on his face and pretends to be dead. Maybe all they’ll take is his money.
But the kids climb off him and don’t even go rummaging through his things.
“Are you sure this is him, Hika?” says a decidedly female voice. “Because he doesn’t exactly strike me as Sannin material.”
“Yes. He matches the photograph in the Hokage’s office perfectly,” a child replies. “I would also like to make you aware that I am hurt by you questioning the information I gave you.”
A second girl groans. “Hikaru, when Dad told you to be more apparent with your feelings this isn’t what he meant.”
“If Dad was displeased with my actions he would tell me so himself,” the child says.
“He didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” the first girl speaks again. “He knows you’ve been working hard at opening up to other people and just because Akane can’t appreciate that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t.”
“Thank you, Akira,” Hikaru says with a smile in his voice.
“Can we get back to the old geezer on the ground? I think he might be dead.” Akane’s voice is closer now. Did she kneel?
“You’re the medic. And I should remind you that if you call this man an old geezer, you’re saying the same of Dad,” Hikaru snarks.
Akane snarls again. “I swear to every god above and below, Hikaru, if you don’t shut up–”
“Children!” comes a harsh cry. A harsh cry that Jiraiya recognizes. His head jerks up and one of the three– Akane, probably– trips backward and falls.
“Hikaru, Akane, Akira, what are you doing?” Orochimaru demands, his hands firmly placed on his hips.
The taller girl stands stock-straight and seems to shrink under Orochimaru’s piercing golden gaze. “Nothing, Dad.”
He rounds on the other two. “Hikaru? Akane?”
Akane points an accusing finger at the ten-ish-year-old next to her. “It was his idea.”
Orochimaru hums. “Was it now?”
“I heard through secure channels that the Sannin Jiraiya would be returning to the village via this path today and, given the emotional shambles you were reportedly left in when he disappeared in Ame three years ago we decided to wait for him and make sure he wouldn’t hurt you again,” Hikaru rattles off. “Was this not appropriate?” For a moment, Orochimaru says nothing and Jiraiya prays for the kid’s safe passage into the Pure Lands. Then, he huffs out a sigh and smiles.
“Go home, all three of you. We’ll talk later.” The children– though two of them look to be fifteen and up– make off towards the village, Akane muttering about stupid gossipy gate guards with the wrong loyalties. Once they’re out of sight, Orochimaru looks to Jiraiya and his smile wanes. “So you’re back.”
“So you have kids,” Jiraiya retorts as he stands. “Who decided to give you kids? I haven’t been gone that long.”
Orochimaru extends one arm towards the village. “A lot has happened. I’ll explain on the way to tea.”
If you enjoyed this piece, why not take a look at other pieces written by the same author on AO3.
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kuriquinn · 7 years
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The Importance of Being Shin [3/?]
General Disclaimer
This chapter has been beta-read by: Sakura's Unicorn
"Oh, hey! There you are, Sai. Come in."
The directive comes from somewhere behind a wall of white; as usual, the Seventh Hokage is buried in paperwork up to his whiskers. Sai steps lightly into the office, closing the door behind him.
It's been over a week since he encountered Sasuke Uchiha while out on a personal errand, but it's the first time he's had a spare minute to get out of the house since then. Between Ino's incessant need for food, sex, or reassurances that she's still pretty, Sai has barely had the time to go to work let alone make what amounts to a social call, albeit with the Hokage.
Naruto clears a space in front of him, moving one of the large piles, and Sai raises an eyebrow. "You look like shit," he tells him honestly.
Naruto scowls. "At least I have an excuse. You were born looking like a creep."
"There's an awful lot of frustration in your voice," Sai notes. "Are you having enough sexual intercourse? Irritability is one of the first signs of –"
"Finish that sentence and I'll have you cleaning chewing gum off the desks at the Academy for the rest of your life – believe it!" Naruto threatens.
Sai smirks. "Whatever you say, Dickless."
"Can anyone on your team even pretend to respect this office?" Shikamaru lurks in the background, probably to make sure Naruto actually reads the documents he's supposed to. Sai also suspects that the Hokage's advisor routinely uses his shadow jutsu to keep Naruto from collapsing over his papers. "None of the other Hokage's advisors ever had to deal with this."
"Well, you could take a page out of Gai-sensei's book and challenge me to a duel every morning, but that's not exactly your style, is it?" Naruto sniggers and then abruptly shuts up as his body goes rigid. "Hey! Shikamaru, man! Come on!"
"We have business to discuss," his advisor reminds him, not even trying to sound patient as his shadow pins the Hokage in place. "And I'd like to get out of here before nine o'clock for once, so could we get on with it?"
"Ah, now I see who wears the pants in this relationship," Sai remarks, earning sour looks from both men even as Shikamaru releases Naruto.
"He's right, though," the blond man says grudgingly, his demeanour turning serious. "I assume Sasuke did his usual cryptic routine and didn't tell you anything?"
"You assume correctly."
Sasuke only offered him hints, but Sai still has contacts. His former Root comrades – the reformed ones who aren't serving prison sentences or dead – hear things. Because he has the ear of the Hokage, he is, in a way, an unofficial link between the old world and the new. So, they still pass information on to him in the hopes of preserving the greater good in Konoha.
Root is nothing but a distant memory now, and the children who suffered there have long since been rehabilitated through the care and effort of Sakura and her clinic. Which means there's only a specific group of children who would benefit from Sai's experience.
A specific, dangerous group of children…
His teammates filled him in on the Shin Uchiha incident long ago – of the lingering remnants of Orochimaru's experiments and countless emotionless clones with fully active Mangekyō Sharingan.
Sai shudders at that.
It's the army Danzo would have killed to possess had he lived.
Beyond Naruto's optimistic plans for the future, he hasn't heard much about how the clones are adjusting to the orphanage. But given the suspected nature of this meeting, he supposes he's about to find out.
Naruto appears to sense his thoughts.
"Listen, if you want to say no, I totally get it," the Hokage tells him with the air of someone resigned to hear the worst. "I know that things are busy for you right now with the baby coming and all. You probably want to spend as much time with Ino and your kid as possible."
"Perhaps you might tell me what the job is first before giving me the option to back out," Sai suggests. "Is that now how one is meant to preface the assignment of an unpleasant duty?"
"It's not unpleasant exactly," Naruto hedges with a minor twitch, "but it would be…challenging."
"Konoha will be accepting three of the Uchiha clones on a trial basis to see if integration is possible," Shikamaru says. "They're going to need an instructor."
For other members of Konoha's ninja elite, this would not be an unreasonable request, but Sai isn't exactly anyone's first choice for mentoring the city's youth. His upbringing inside Danzo Shimura's organization still casts a long shadow, and while people might be more at ease around him than certain other reformed shinobi, they would still prefer Sai not be the one to influence the next generation.
"Protocol dictates their instructor be of jōnin rank," he points out.
"And you and I both know you have more practical experience than half the people serving as jōnin right now," Naruto replies. He holds up several files. "The mission specs are in here if you're interested – official reports and what Sasuke found out – but I think you already know what I'm asking you. These kids need someone to teach them, and I think you're the best candidate for the job."
Even though this is what he expected, Sai is unsure how to answer.
"Wouldn't Kakashi be a more appropriate candidate in this case?" he questions carefully. "His experience with the Sharingan, not to mention his responsibility in training the legendary heroes of the Fourth Great Shinobi War…"
"Kakashi might have all that under his belt, but there are other important experiences he doesn't have," Shikamaru says. "You grew up being a nameless, expendable pawn for a secret organization. Sorry if that was indelicate."
"No, that is a fair assessment," Sai acknowledges.
"It's really not just that," Naruto interjects. "I mean, yeah, your upbringing definitely has some importance, but the reason you're the best person for this job is your relatability."
Sai blinks at this. "I don't understand."
"The reason Kakashi was a good teacher to us was that he understood us on a basic level," Naruto explains. "Sasuke and I were orphans. So was Kakashi. He knew what it was to lose his parents and he knew what it was like to be judged based on something he couldn't control. And he had a soft spot for Sakura because she reminded him of the girl he cared for when he was younger."
"Rin Nohara," Sai remembers. He has heard bits and pieces about Kakashi's past over the years, but has never asked directly; prior to joining Team 7, Danzo required he be familiar with every member's background.
"Yeah. Point is there was something there that let him bond with all of us. With the clone kids, he wouldn't have that," Naruto says. "Not that I'd rule out bringing him in to help. Considering Sasuke's made it clear he wants to be as hands-off as possible on this one, Kakashi might be the only one who can help them deal with their Sharingan issues. But these kids are going to need someone they can go to who can empathize with them…maybe even trust one day."
"I seem to recall it took a while for you and Sakura to trust me. What makes you think the same can't be said for these boys?"
"You're not working for an evil organization anymore, are you?" Naruto shoots back, but without any true malice. Instead, his expression shifts back to serious. "As long as I've known you, you've done your best to learn about what it means to be human. Whether it's from your stupid-ass books or just talking to other people, you know what it's like to start with zero real emotion or feelings – just like these kids. There's no one else in the entire city who has that experience, and that's why you're really the only one I can see succeeding in this task."
They hold each other's gaze for a long while. Naruto breaks it with a tired smile.
"At least, that's how I see it. Like I said before, I get it if you don't want to take this on. I know I'm doing an awesome job selling this –" Shikamaru rolls his eyes. "– but it's not going to be a walk in the park. You say the word and I'll find someone else. It'll be hard, but we've done more difficult things before."
Sai remains quiet for several minutes, thinking over what his friend has said. As much as Naruto tries to hoke about "selling" him on the idea, he is being utterly sincere.
To be honest, Sai is tempted to turn down the job.
As intriguing as it is, he thinks Naruto gives him too much credit. He didn't achieve his current lifestyle by himself.
In some ways, it's Sai's association with Konoha's current Sannin and his membership within the renowned Team 7 that has allowed him to integrate into city affairs as (relatively) easily as he has. That and his wife's imposing nature.
Sai never realised that becoming the husband of Ino Yamanaka would lead to so many opportunities, whether it be choice invitations to social gatherings or establishing healthy work relationships with others. From existing in the shadows without even a name, Sai has become an actual upstanding member of the community.
With a job and everything.
When Sai was younger, he never would have dreamed that he would grow up to be the head city planner of the Leaf village. Instead of wetwork and black ops, he designs buildings and monuments to showcase Konoha's distinct spirit. All of his paintings have names now, and he's even sold a few to collectors.
And then, of course, there are the changes that he attributes to becoming a father.
Inojin is a perplexing child. It's as if every quality of Ino's that Sai finds mystifying and everything she doesn't understand about him were mixed together to create this…peculiar, amazing and completely separate individual; one that Sai loves with his entire heart, a sensation he never experienced before.
Nor did he ever truly expect to experience it again and yet, in a month or so, there's going to be another tiny, new life in their home. A daughter, the scans say. He's admitted only to Ino (and Sakura because she's always had a unique gift of getting him to talk about his feelings) how terrified he is of the prospect.
"You'll be fine," his friend and former teammate told him months ago when he first expressed these doubts. "You've done a great job with Inojin and, if you have any problems, you have so many people who would help you out." A surprisingly true fact.
But Naruto was right earlier; Sai would much rather be preparing for his daughter's birth, enjoying his wife and son, and planning Konoha's cityscape than embarking on what sounds like a long, complicated mentorship.
However…
There is a very strong part of him that knows he would not forgive himself for putting his happiness in front of the needs of three young boys – especially those who have been raised in not entirely dissimilar circumstance to him.
It is a testament to his friendship with Naruto, Sakura, and even Sasuke over the years that he could feel this empathy.
"I appreciate your offer to find someone else, however, you're correct," Sai says. "These boys will not develop in an environment where they are surrounded by the reminders of their past. In Root, we were forced to become desensitized to the deaths of our brothers. It was something we were required to learn. These clones have had it practically bred into them."
Naruto brightens. "So you'll do it?"
"Yes."
"Great," Naruto says, relief evident in his voice. "To be honest, I really didn't have a back-up if you didn't take it."
"You're not exactly known for your contingency plans," Sai adds.
"You won't start with them right away," Shikamaru says, also sounding relieved. "Once they're in the village, they'll need to undergo mandatory psychiatric evaluations."
"And they need to be instructed in the shinobi way," Naruto adds. "They'll have to attend lessons of some sort, but that probably won't take too long. "
"They have Sharingan, as well as more practical experience than most chūnin, so that should cut the time short. According to Kabuto's reports, they are highly intelligent, so the usual five years of Academy instruction won't be required."
"Which is a good thing because I don't want them around too many people just yet," Naruto says firmly. "Just because they're geniuses doesn't mean they have the right skills to get along with other kids."
"A situation which you would know nothing about," Sai notes, thinking of the stories his teammates have told him about Naruto's academic performance; the term 'dead-last' comes to mind.
"Watch it!"
"I am merely offering an observation that Sasuke would be making if he were here and not changing diapers," Sai says dismissively. "Speaking of, this is a matter of the Uchiha, isn't it? Shouldn't their new clan head be here? Inojin has been talking about the news for a month now."
Naruto makes a face.
"Usually? Yeah. But this was all decided before Sarada officially took over. Sasuke said something about not bringing old world thinking into the new clan or some angsty bullshit like that," Naruto complains, earning a discreet cough from Shikamaru. "Anyway, whatever his logic is, I happen to agree that Sarada shouldn't be burdened with too much of this until she's more accustomed to her responsibilities."
"And there are many," Sai says. "Quite a lot for a girl her age. Inojin is having his own difficulties simply shadowing Ino these days. For Sarada to take all of those duties on…"
"Well, it's an Uchiha thing, I think – they're all goddamn overachievers," Naruto says, although there's affection and pride there rather than criticism.
"Honestly, I'd rather she be an overachieving bureaucrat than become head of ANBU at thirteen," Shikamaru notes. "Because that turned out so well the last time."
It's a sobering sentiment and the three of them exchange grim looks.
None of them knew the truth about Itachi Uchiha until after the war – during, in Naruto's case – but they were all affected by choices he made. None of them want to see their children experience the same difficult decisions he faced.
Sai decides he doesn't like the tension in the room. Social protocol demands a change in subject, or so he's been trained by his wife to believe.
"Where will the boys be staying?" he asks, half-expecting Naruto to suggest something ridiculous like hosting all of them at the Hokage's residence. Hinata would probably let him, too; the woman is still utterly besotted, even after all these years.
There's a knock from outside the office and Naruto grins. "Funny you should ask that. Come in!"
The door swings open, revealing a familiar, weary-looking face.
"Yamato?" Sai asks, the question directed to both Naruto and the former interim leader of Team 7.
"Lord Seventh," Yamato says in greeting. Of everyone formerly on Team 7, he's the only one who ever refers to Naruto by his title even when they are speaking informally. "Anko Mitarashi just relieved me of my surveillance duties and directed me to come see you." He then nods at the others. "Shikamaru. Sai."
"Oh, yeah. I needed to talk to you," Naruto says, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
"Something that couldn't be conveyed via messenger bird?"
"This is better said in person," Naruto shrugs. "There's a situation that's come up that I need to know your thoughts on. If you're interested, Anko will temporarily take over your assignment."
"She's been retired for years," Yamato says in mild protest.
"Don't let her obsession with sweets fool you – she's still lethal," he warns. "And crazy. More importantly, she knows the old snake's habits pretty well."
"Are my abilities in question?"
"No. That's not it at all. In fact, I have another job in mind for you."
Yamato, Sai notes, has the sense to look at least slightly worried.
つづく
クリ
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unwiltingblossom · 6 years
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A Dance of Flame and Shadow (3/?)
Summary: There are times when one does not so much meddle with time, as time meddles with them. They were never meant to meet. They always would. Cause and effect can be difficult to determine, but the shadow has always been moved by the light, not the other way around. Time travel, a stable time loop or two, and many casualties lie ahead. DanzoSaku.
I wish I knew how I picked these chapter titles.
Chapter Two: Etched in Stone
She didn't exactly regret knocking the man through a few store fronts and one particularly large house. Actually, it was extremely satisfying.
It didn't really help the situation, though.
He responded to her attack so quickly that any chance he might be some kind of a low-level ninja impostor who'd gotten lucky (or pitied by security) vanished immediately. He must not even have finished skidding before wind blades sliced through the remains of the wooden buildings between he and she.
When she managed to avoid those, earthen spikes nearly skewered her.
Knocking a long range jutsu user out of her arm's length wasn't the best tactical decision she'd ever made.
Still, she wasn't without a few options. Like snapping off one of the spikes and flinging it at his figure in the distance. Or rushing to close the distance between them again.
Despite having improbably terrible intel, he wasn't personally stupid enough to try to block her next punch. He was nimble enough to dodge it outright, though. And he looked more...inconvenienced than strained.
A kunai appeared at her neck. It moved away on its own, given the option between being shattered and retreating.
"Weren't you going to verify my identity?" He didn't sound bored so much as offended that she'd take up his time with something so petty as an attempt to arrest him. Or pulverize him. Whichever happened first. She wasn't that picky, honestly.
"You already did that yourself!" He managed to swerve out of the way of one of her attacks at the last moment, causing her to crash through wood back into the street. A small group of passing civilians startled and then sprinted away from them.
He directed a disapproving scowl at her. "You're causing an unnecessary ruckus. If you simply wished for a fight, you should have asked for it outside of the village."
Why?
Why was he insisting something they both knew was a lie?
It didn't make any sense!
"I didn't ask for anything from you!"
He huffed, and took a step out from the demolished (and fortunately already closed) shop.
The air didn't stir. She saw no blur of movement at all, nor did she hear a sound. One moment he simply stood a step away from her and she calculated how next to hit him.
The next, a group of masked ANBU stood around them.
Well. An all-out fight in the middle of the village between a shinobi and an invader was bound to bring them eventually.
"Explain yourselves." The hawk-mask ANBU spoke in a way that cut through the air like an icy chill. It did figure the one who'd show up would be him. She didn't even know who he was, and yet he always seemed to be the one that caused the most trouble for her.
She straightened, gaze not turning from the man in front of her.
"This one...he claimed to be one of the Hokage's current students. Except he claimed to be one of the Second's students."
"...And you attacked me as if that would clear up your confusion." She appreciated his flat tone exactly not at all. There he was surrounded by powerful enemies, about to be dragged away for interrogation, and he spoke as if he were an instructor at the academy lecturing her for failing a practical test.
Except he was her age and almost completely insane.
The hawk turned his head to the man, 'Danzo', standing across from her. "That scar. Where did it come from?"
His irritation finally! Turned onto someone other than her! Which was good, because if the ANBU gave into the urge to kill someone, she wouldn't be the one getting in trouble. Even if she also wouldn't experience nearly the same amount of satisfaction.
"Having an opinion."
The ANBU surrounding them were silent for a few moments. Sometimes she wondered if they had some sort of jutsu that allowed nonverbal communication between groups of them, or if they were simply so highly trained that they could communicate ideas and concepts without allowing anyone else to realize they were doing it.
Perhaps they were all the strong and silent type.
"...You'll both come to see the Hokage."
"Both of us?" Well, she did destroy part of the village, but it was just to deal with an intruder! A dangerous one at that, as she discovered...after attacking him.
'Danzo' sighed. "That would have settled the matter from the start."
She glared at him. He ignored her as if she did nothing at all.
ANBU were nothing if not efficient, though, and once they all turned in the direction of the Hokage tower, there wasn't really any more time to discuss or glare or...fight. Both of them were marched through the streets toward where the Lady Hokage would be waiting. Where a Lady Hokage would be waiting in not the best of moods, probably.
At least, they marched down that path until they got to the main street of Konoha, a straight-shot to the Hokage tower and monument. The moment they came into view, the man next to her froze. His body stood rigid, his eyes widened, staring straight ahead at the hokage tower (or the mountain, considering his terrible cover story). It didn't look...that shocked, honestly. It was a pretty mild expression.
Somehow he managed not to look horrified, though. The last shred of doubt of his identity should have been ripped away even to the most deluded of spies, and yet he just looked...surprised? Confused? Mostly surprised. And not moving.
One of the ANBU behind him shoved his shoulder. "Keep moving."
She frowned over at him. He took a step or two, but then he only stopped again, still staring up at the mountain. "Hey, you don't want to make them agitated. What are you doing?"
His brows knit, and he gave a small shake of his head. He muttered something under his breath, but she didn't quite catch it from where she stood. His bizarre behavior was just starting to bother her. For someone who didn't seem to be anything like Naruto, he somehow managed to find every possible way to be infuriating and grating the way Naruto used to do when his only concern was whatever prank he planned on pulling next.
Actually, now that she thought about it...his clothes seemed out of place.
What he was wearing was just about the absolute last thing she'd been concerned about when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, following up an unwelcome kiss with generally being confusing and infuriating. Now that she bothered to look, his uniform lacked any real kind of color. Rather than the flak jacket that anyone chuunin rank or above was issued, he wore a much more primitive form of armor. The kind that fell out of use during the Third's reign.
She shook her head quickly and turned her attention back to where they were going: the Hokage Tower. Looking at him made her head hurt and her blood boil. Just about now, she'd rather face the Lady Hokage than think any more about how bizarre and out of place the man next to her was.
)+(
It probably would have been a little more pleasant just to stand in the middle of the street and confuse herself with the out-of-place nin than face the Lady Hokage.
Well, if she'd proven the so-called 'Danzo' really was an enemy nin trying to infiltrate the village, it wouldn't have mattered what member of the Daimyo's family owned that one tall building she collapsed a few support beams in. Somehow hauling in a strange probably-imposter resulted in a longer lecture about destroying Konoha property than interrogation of the suspect.
"...So you don't remember anything about moving from then to now?" The Lady Hokage settled her chin on her hand and looked up at the young man beside her with an expression that held entirely too little suspicion for the matter at hand.
He frowned. "As I said."
"And you, Sakura, don't remember asking him to do anything?"
As if there were really anything she could have requested that could be confused for 'walk up and kiss me without warning'.
"I've never seen him before in my life."
His gaze flickered toward her, sour. Well. She wasn't about to make up a lie to the Hokage for his benefit. It wasn't as if she trusted him, or had any reason whatsoever to want to do so.
Tsunade tapped her knuckle to her lip. Perhaps there was a long history that only the Hokage knew about of displaced Konoha shinobi suddenly appearing. Apparently from a different point in time than they belong, if his insistence that he served under the Second were true.
If they weren't, he was maybe the most stubborn liar she'd ever seen. Not even a good liar, though. Just a stubborn one.
"Obviously I can't just take your word that something so outrageous is true."
A slim brow rose. Which was almost surprising in itself, because she'd begun to suspect his eyebrows were actually stuck in a permanent scowl. "Obviously."
"Then I'll give you three options." The Lady Hokage settled her hands on the desk, knitting her fingers."Submit to interrogation to determine the truth of your claims, admit to the nation you were sent to infiltrate from so that I can respond appropriately, or be executed."
Executed...
She couldn't help a small frown, glancing over to the man next to her.
He wouldn't really choose that, would he?
He seemed entirely unfazed by the casual threats laid out before him. "I presume Konoha still employs the Yamanaka clan after this time?"
Tsunade's lips twitched up into a slim smile. "Not all of your information is uselessly outdated."
He grunted. She thought it might have been an offended sound, but really...just assigning his responses appropriate emotions made it less of a headache to observe him, so she could have been making it up. It wasn't aggressive, so in the end that was most of what mattered.
"If that's what it takes, then."
The Lady Hokage sat back in her chair then, and gave a curt nod. "I'll figure out what to do with you after we determine if you're telling the truth."
Only a moment or two after she finished speaking, a small group of ANBU appeared in the office once more, having vanished since the Hokage first started speaking to the two of them. This time, at least, they only appeared around the strange man. When they left, he vanished with them.
"Do you think..." She glanced over at the Lady Hokage. "There could be two of them?"
She must have, right? If she was entertaining in any way that the man's story was true, she must have assumed there were more than just the old thorn in her side. Given the condition she'd heard he was in, he probably would have been older than that even if somehow he really were in the wrong time.
What kind of a jutsu would even allow that, anyway?
The Lady Hokage shook her head. "The Shimura are a private family. Even when I was younger I never really got to know any of them. It's possible."
She huffed, looking out the door that the ANBU likely traveled through only moments before. "If he's born here...there's records, right? Even if they won't answer, we should have something to prove he's existed."
"Well, you could try looking." Shizune's voice cut through the office. She'd been so uninvolved in things since they'd been shoved into the office that Sakura had nearly forgotten her senior student's presence entirely. "But if he's really from where he says he is, the records are unreliable. Many of them were destroyed in attacks, and even more were never even recorded in the first place."
That...
That was...
Unbelievably frustrating.
Not that she actually believed him about being displaced without even having a good explanation for how or why.
Because she didn't.
He was definitely just crazy. And dangerous.
And had the actual worst taste in cover identities.
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