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'I hope they're enjoying their last day of freedom. What a waste of a morning.'
The girl frowned down at the three prospective genin slumping around in various poses of disinterest and inaction. She felt like a creeper and had to wonder- did Kakashi ever do this to her? It seemed like him, to watch from a distance to observe what she did when she thought she was unseen. She had been curious about how accurate her knowledge of the relationship between Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke was. After all, it was entirely possible that she had changed things by changing Naruto. It didn't look like it.
From her tree-top position under a mild genjutsu, Aiko couldn't hear what little conversation was going on between the three genin, but she probably didn't need to.
Somewhat surprisingly, Naruto had arrived first. Her otouto had paced for a while, jogging around the training field to make sure that he really was the only one there before settling down into the grass about fifteen feet from the lacquered wooden bridge over the small stream that bisected their training ground. He must wake earlier than she'd thought, or maybe it was first day jitters that had him out of bed at six forty. It was cute how he actually knew Kakashi was chronically late, but still thought there was a possibility that he would show up on time for their test.
Sasuke was next to show up, only about two minutes later. Even from her perch Aiko could see that he went a little bug-eyed at seeing Naruto had beat him there. The brunette sullenly (or was it meant to be impassively?) leant against the side of the red bridge to wait.
Her otouto still didn't have much of an attention span- after the clear disappointment of seeing Sasuke instead of Sakura he was looking longingly off into the trees, but clearly restrained himself.
That girl he always wanted to impress pranced in on a veritable cloud of batted eyelashes and floating perfume five minutes before the time Kakashi had given them. Aiko tried not to sigh, rubbing her face with one hand while her silly otouto went ga-ga, guilelessly complimenting her dress (why hadn't anyone ever told her it was unsuitable?). The pink-haired girl paid him no mind, honing in on Sasuke in a way that definitely wasn't subtle. The poor boy cringed when she inched closer and closer.
Sakura probably wasn't a bad kid, aside from the obsessive parts of her personality and her quick temper. She was just so… so… well, so civilian that it hurt a little to look at her. Aiko had worked hard to distance herself from that lifestyle and perspective, so seeing a fellow kunoichi who hadn't yet caught on made it difficult to bite her tongue. That didn't even account for the fact that she heard from Naruto about every inane thing the froofy little chit did ad nauseaum.
Sasuke seemed sort of sensibly on guard around her. That was a good judgment on his behalf- despite her painfully innocuous presentation, there was something distinctly predatory about the girl. The core of an effective (if crazy) kunoichi was there.
That potential was probably more worrying than encouraging for her brunette teammate. She had designs on his flesh.
On time, Aiko flickered to the center of their little group, posing stretched-out on the ground so that when they noticed she was there, they would question just how long she had been behind them. Sasuke was the first to notice her. "Good morning, kittens," she said calmly. "Sleep well?"
Sakura was the only one who engaged in polite banter, eying her up in a distinctly unfriendly manner. 'This girl isn't nearly as subtle as she thinks she is.'
She gave a long stretch, feeling the muscles in her back and shoulders pull pleasantly, and yawned before flipping to her feet. "On your feet, Naruto. I'm not going to be sticking around for your test because I've got places to be, so let's make this quick. We're doing stretches. Sakura, tell me why."
"To prevent muscle injury later during a workout," the girl said briskly, glancing away from her precious love interest/victim for a moment to make eye contact. Aiko pretended she didn't hear the girl's stomach rumble. It was in good company- apparently none of them had eaten. They'd soon learn not to trust stupid orders. That was Kakashi's lesson to teach, however, not hers. She'd settle for starting their physical conditioning.
"Good. We're doing something called a sun salutation. Right now it's just a series of stretches, but eventually it'll be a meditation tool for you three. Sasuke, why is meditation a ninja skill?"
The three pre-teens copied her movements easily, sinking into the grass. "To increase available chakra by using spiritual energy," he replied, monotone and dignified despite being ass-up. Kid took himself too seriously. Sakura was torn between sucking her stomach in and staring, wide-eyed at the view. Aiko slid into downward-facing-dog and the three followed her. At least Naruto seemed solely focused on the salutation.
By the time Kakashi deigned to show up, she had the kids doing rounds of sit ups and push-ups. Sakura was red-faced and trembling, clearly on the verge of collapse. Sasuke was doing the best and still going strong. He was physically the strongest, it seemed. He had probably earned that top ranking. Even with his foxy advantage, Naruto got tired but easily recuperated one muscle group while he had switched to the other.
In the back of her mind, she was already making plans as to how to direct their training- she knew Kakashi well enough to be sure that he would think his 'hands-off' method would suffice, which left it up to her. It was in her benefit as well- now that he had a full-time team, Kakashi had pretty much been grounded from his real missions. That left her either stuck in the village for training or on loan to other Chuunin teams. That prospect didn't exactly make her shiver with delight.
Once the kittens were strong enough to take out, she'd get to do better missions again. Even fresh genin could be relatively safe on C missions with a Jounin and a Chuunin.
"Today you will be doing survival training," Kakashi announced with a grim theatricality. That man got far too much joy out of tormenting children. He set three store-bought bento on the ground. "I hope you're not hungry, because anyone who does poorly at today's training won't be getting lunch."
Aiko tried not to ruin the atmosphere by laughing at their faces. They could probably still hear her through the hand over her mouth, but they seemed momentarily broken by just how much of a dick their sensei was. 'Welcome to my world.' She really loved Kakashi-sensei. He was just such an awkward, abrasive weirdo.
"This is your goal."
He held up two bells. Aiko eyed them with interest- this was the first time he'd pulled out the famous bells around her, and she hadn't had reason to 'know' of them before. He'd told her he would be testing them to see if they could work as a team, but no more details than that. She wasn't going to be doing all that much training with them- they weren't really on the same level, and she was more of a more experienced peer than a mentor.
"Your objective is to get these from me within one hour." He pulled an alarm clock out of nowhere and set it down on railing of the bridge. "Use any means necessary to get them. You have no chance to defeat me unless you come at me with intent to kill."
The bridge was totally silent except for the whisper of wind through the grass.
"But sensei!" Sakura protested. "There's only two bells!"
The two boys started, as if they hadn't noticed before she brought it to their attention. Kakashi chuckled in a way that Aiko knew was fake as all hell.
"That's right. I suppose that means one of you isn't going to pass, doesn't it?"
The three genin eyed each other, as if weighing up and dismissing each other. Sakura looked both inordinately self-satisfied beyond what her abilities merited and eager to get next to Sasuke. Naruto looked directly at the pink-haired girl with longing. Sasuke looked confident but anxious to get away from his peers, possibly by taking two bells.
"Begin now."
All three genin leapt away into the underbrush. "You're a mean man," she muttered quietly, trying not to smile. Her teacher shrugged, one hand slowly drifting towards his hip pouch. She hurried away, not wanting to interfere. They had to be able to do this on their own and she didn't want to be tempted to help.
~~~
Her bet that training ground ten would still be unoccupied at 10:40 am was a good one. 'Lazy bastards,' she snickered. Despite the fact that it was assigned to team ten, there was no reason she couldn't use it when they weren't around. 'Poor Ino… Her team assignment is pretty shitty.' Aiko walked onto the wide, flat river that was the reason she preferred this area and took a moment to warm up again by running through katas on the water surface.
Team ten had been assembled on the basis of 'nepotism' and the fanciful imagining that children were basically smaller copies of their parents. It was frightfully unfair to all three kids. Chouji and Shikamaru were relatively compatible personalities, (though not necessarily in the way teammates should be in order to push each other) but Ino wanted so much more than either of them did. Despite her vain affectations and flippancy, she really was a serious little kunoichi. Her peers were ninja because their parents wanted them to be, not because of any drive.
Who cared that their family jutsu worked well together?
That kind of unimaginative thinking was more limiting than anything. Family jutsu were great and all, but making that the cornerstone of a ninja's arsenal was absolutely idiotic. A ninja's greatest advantage came through being unexpected, whether that be through literal stealth or through being unpredictable. When you had an entire clan of blonde people who used the same two jutsu and pretty much only those two jutsu… It was stupidly easy for one strategy to be used against multiple Yamanaka or Akimichi or whatever.
'I'll never understand people.'
Of course, they were trying to do something similar with her. The Hokage must look at her and see a pale version of the Bloody Habanera- with her reddish hair, relatively weak chakra chains, hand-me-down sealing knowledge passed down through Kakashi, and a water affinity, she had all the components to be a half-assed version of her mother.
'Goody', she grumbled. That wasn't exactly her life plan, but that didn't mean she was refusing to pick up what Kakashi wanted to pass on of Kushina's jutsu (he'd never said that was the case, of course. Officially, she had no idea who her parents were. That was fine by Aiko. She didn't know that she could pretend to think of Minato and Kushina as her parents- they were Naruto's parents, but she had never been their baby).
Sometimes all Kakashi had to pass on was a mess of vague descriptions and unhelpful hand movements- he couldn't perform many of Kushina's techniques, so he was really helping her re-invent them more than he was teaching them.
She had been working on chakra chains for months, and it was starting to seem like she was just not cut out for the large-scale stuff Kushina had been able to do. She could restrain a few human opponents, but Kushina had restrained the rampaging Nine-Tails on her death bed. Aiko was under no illusions that she had that kind of talent.
She did pretty well with much thinner constructions, however. They were more like chakra ribbons than anything. She used them to clean the apartment without getting off the couch.
At least she had something seriously bad ass going on with her water affinity. She'd mastered all the jutsu Kakashi could give her- but boring, predictable jutsu weren't the hallmark of water mastery. Water was flexible and adaptive- by infusing it with her chakra and enforcing her will upon it she could make it do almost anything. It was more like an extension of her body than a weapon- like what the chakra chains had been for Kushina.
Best of all… She was pretty sure she now understood the logic behind Kushina's ancestors declaring themselves the Whirlpool.
Mastery of water was like being a pagan god, a chaotic mass of incomprehensible fury that answered to nothing.
With arm movements that weren't strictly necessary but helped her concentration, Aiko was suddenly at the center of a pillar of water cycling furiously and sucking up everything from the waterbed. She gritted her teeth and pushed, forcing it higher and wider, surrounding herself with a maelstrom that would be impenetrable by any conventional means. The strain on her reserves was negligible by now once she had it moving, momentum and her position as the centripetal force made maintaining speed child's play.
On a river, she was a minor god. The Uzumaki of old in the land of Whirlpool must have been terrifying in their watery homes. Unfortunately, there was a good reason they'd lived there and not in Konoha.
Both arms swung down and spread out, forcing the tornado of water to widen at the bottom and explode, the water at the top funneling out to follow the path of the escaping fluid at the bottom and shoot in a straight line that cut all the way through the short brush and a few inches into the trees along the river bank. She let it go, slipping to the ground in a minor flood that flowed and dripped back into the river basin.
She could only use this kind of water play when she had a large amount of water available. That meant that if she couldn't fight on or near the water, she had to create it herself through conventional water jutsu, which burnt through her reserves painfully quickly.
The pre-teen sighed, using shunshin to perch on a low-hanging tree branch to avoid getting muddy. (For a Leaf nin, standing on a Hashirama tree was about as natural as using the ground).
"Time for the boring stuff." Her teacher had demonstrated the first non-water elemental technique he wanted her to learn just last week. It wasn't going well, in no small part because lightning wasn't even her secondary affinity. That was probably air. In any case, changing her elemental alignment to even use pure lightning chakra took far too long for it to be useful in a fight.
The first time, it had taken her nearly half an hour to figure it out. After that she improved exponentially, but the six minutes she now clocked before she could spit lightning was still far too long. Her teacher could whip out an attack in less than a second. As a Chuunin, she would have been delighted with a five second time to switch her alignment after using water, but ten seconds was the absolute maximum she was going to accept from herself.
The only thing to do…. Was to practice. Again and again. Spit water. Change the direction and qualities of chakra flow in her coils. Spit lightning. Check time- five minutes forty two seconds. Release the chakra so it instantly swirled back to its natural alignment. Use water bullets. Change elemental affinity. Spit lightning. Check time- five minutes thirty eight seconds.
She could fight boredom by varying water attacks, but she only had the one minor lightning jutsu, which didn't help matters.
After an hour of work she finally broke past the barrier she'd been struggling with and managed to clock under five minutes. Her reserves were half gone, which meant she had to keep working, despite meeting her goal for the day.
It was an incredibly dull and chakra-intensive process. The only good thing about it was that she could stop for the day when she had her coils down to about ten percent- the most she could lose without risking serious injury. The routine had nearly doubled her chakra capacity, so she knew she shouldn't complain. It was just mind-numbing, and her fingers tingled with static electricity for hours after she stopped each day.
"They passed."
Aiko shrieked and jerked backwards, losing her balance in surprise and falling. In her panic, she barely managed to right herself and land on her feet. "Someone needs to put a bell on you, you sneaky bastard." she grumbled. Pointedly, he jingled the two that were hanging from his hip pouch. "Doesn't count, they don't make any sound. I meant a bell you can't silence."
His expression indicated that there was no bell he couldn't silence.
"So they figured it out, or they actually got the bells?" Aiko changed the subject. He gave her a supremely condescending look. The girl flushed, feeling the heat creep over her cheeks. It was a dumb question. Still... "Hey, it could happen," she defended. "Weirder things have in the history of the Elemental Nations."
He leapt away, apparently changing his mind about talking to her. She tried to follow, but he lost her on the rooftops with a series of shunshin. Aiko gave a heavy sigh. "Jackass." She checked the time against the position of the sun. "At least I know someone who will tell me all about it."
~~~
Naruto fidgeted in his usual seat outside the Hokage's office (it was bolted to the ground and it had his name on it and everything, though it was usually intended for when he was waiting to be yelled at after a prank so that he didn't creatively interpret the order to wait for the Hokage), confused and mildly vexed by being summoned there suddenly. He had planned on visiting the next day anyway, so the old man really should have just waited after Naruto found Iruka-sensei to tell him about how his first day as a ninja had gone.
His perpetually sunny attitude wasn't really flagging, despite the inconvenience. At least he'd have a chance to tell the old man about how awesome he was and that he was a real ninja now!
He'd totally shown up that bastard Sasuke during the bell test. Sure, he had his fancy fire vomit and shuriken attached to wires and-
Naruto cut off that train of thought before he started to feel sad that he couldn't vomit fire. Maybe he'd get the bastard to teach him! It would be the least the bastard could do for him, after Naruto was the one who got them through the test by coming to the brilliant conclusion that the gray-haired bastard had been trying to trick them because he couldn't handle all three of them working together. Kakashi-sensei had even said he was surprised and proud of Naruto for figuring it out and convincing the other two to work together, even though their plan had failed horribly- and he was totally going to look up 'savant' when he got home so he knew what exactly he'd been praised for.
Whatever it was, even Sasuke-bastard had reluctantly agreed, even though he turned his face away and made a funny sound that was almost like a snicker so that Naruto couldn't see how much the admission pained him. Sakura-chan had looked a bit uncertain, but he'd convince her.
The blonde beamed, completely unaware that the Chuunin behind the mission desk was keeping a very close eye on him and scowling. When the door opened and Sarutobi Asuma walked out, cigarette attached to his mouth as firmly as the frown was, the Jounin certainly noticed.
He scowled at the younger man, who jumped a little and looked away. The kid was a bit hyper and undeniably naughty, but that was no excuse to treat him like a criminal. Asuma knew something about the weight of expectation and how much it sucked to be in the public eye, so he felt a little sympathy for the brat.
Plus… the kid was stuck with Hatake. If that wasn't reason to pity him, there was nothing in the world deserving of sympathy. He'd probably end up brainwashed into another masked, passive-aggressive weirdo, like his poor sister who trailed after Hatake like a puppy.
He'd actually checked for a genjutsu the first time he saw the little chit in a mask. His next thought was that it had been some bizarre challenge with Gai, who had recently acquired a little green copy. It appeared to be neither- just fervent admiration from a silly Chuunin for her teacher. If she were a little older, he might have worried. But despite his racy reading tastes, Hatake appeared to be on the straight and narrow. Asuma was glad to see his eccentric comrade seemed to be a genuinely good guy, even if he was cripplingly weird. There had been no small amount of whispered speculation when Hatake had started to walk around town with porn in one hand and a ten-year old girl cheerily hanging off the other arm.
Naruto rushed in past the tall man oblivious to both the interaction with the hostile Chuunin and the sympathy directed at him, bounding to his usual chair in one leap. "Hey, old man! You'll never guess what happened today!"
Despite the unpleasant conversation he'd just had and the unpleasant one he was about to have, Sarutobi Hiruzen couldn't help but smile. "What happened, Naruto-kun?"
He stood, shuffling over to his bookshelf for the information he had prepared for this day. He'd nearly put this meeting off in the excitement of the day- some idiot Chuunin had decided it was the optimal time to turn traitor and break into the archives. He'd have to find a replacement Academy teacher sometime before eight am tomorrow- that man was currently a bit broken in the interrogations center, delusionally claiming that Orochimaru had wanted a scroll. It was just baffling that he'd thought he could get past the ANBU, much less the Hokage himself. But Sarutobi had known that if he put this revelation off past the day he'd promised himself he'd tell Naruto, he would be likely to convince himself Naruto didn't need to know yet.
"My sensei had us do another test to prove we were real ninja like the ones on the stone and I was the one who figured it out because Aiko had said something yesterday that made me think- oh yeah, Aiko is kind of on my team! Isn't that awesome?"
The Sandaime opened his mouth to reply, but didn't get the words out fast enough.
"And Sakura-chan is on my team too! It's going to be great, I bet she'll like me now that we're real ninja! I wish the bastard wasn't on my team, though, can we do a trade? Or even just have the team be Sakura and me and Aiko, well Kakashi-sensei too I guess. He's so weird but he said I did good! Hey, old man, is he always late? And one more thing- is he as old as he looks because I think he might be on his last leg and any day now he's going to keel o-"
"Naruto-kun, you make an old man feel tired." Hiruzen slumped back into his chair, smiling gently. "I am glad to hear that you did well on your test and that you like your teammates. I'm sure you will grow to like Sasuke-kun and Kakashi-kun as well, given time to get to know them."
"So… That's a no to trading Sasuke away, then?"
"You're a smart boy, Naruto-kun." The Sandaime ran a wrinkled hand over the book he had retrieved. "I have something I need to talk to you about. Something very important. Now that you're a ninja, you need to know the truth."
~~~
The door slammed, uncharacteristically loud. Aiko frowned, looking up from where she'd been checking on cookies and shut the oven. Baking was probably a silly hobby for a ninja, but at least it was easier to hide than binge-drinking or sex addiction. "Naruto?" She pulled off her cupcake shaped mitts (a project she had made badly years ago in a sewing class) and set them on the counter. "Is everything alright?"
Her brother didn't say anything. The bedroom door shut a moment later, and a 'whumph' announced that he had just flopped onto his futon. She frowned, perplexed. That last time she'd seen him, he'd still been riding on the high of his victory. To hear him tell it, he'd singlehandedly figured out the purpose of the bell test and united his teammates against the evil geriatric Cyclops who'd poked his butt. His enthusiasm had only been slightly dampened by the fact that he couldn't find Iruka anywhere to share the news.
When the summons had come and Naruto took off to tell the Hokage about it, he'd been visibly excited at the prospect of retelling his story. Despite the fact that Aiko didn't hide her lack of enthusiasm for him (she was still sure he was an emotionally manipulative old bigot), Naruto quite liked the Hokage. What could have happened that would put him in an uncharacteristically bad mood?
She drifted out to the living room, picking up trash and bringing dirty tea cups to the sink. The books she had on loan from the library were spread over the floor, so she piled them on the table. The twins weren't the best of housekeepers, to be honest.
An unpleasant thought occurred. She'd stopped Mizuki from telling Naruto that he was a jinchuuriki… When had the Konoha council or whoever been planning to tell him? They couldn't very well send him out into the field not knowing, could they? It was already pretty absurd that they had let him get to the age of twelve without knowing that he held such a terrible burden.
How would Naruto take that knowledge? The way he was meant to find out had been especially traumatizing, but he'd gotten over it pretty quickly in the manga… Or had he? She had a hard time remembering details, but he might have repressed the emotional reaction and had a lowered self esteem. Then again, he was a different person then. She had changed him just by being here… and that might have affected the way he would cope with stressful knowledge.
Slowly, Aiko walked to the bedroom, pushing the door open slightly. "Naruto?"
He was on his side with his back to the door, face buried in a pillow. She sat beside him, gently running a hand across his shoulders. "Want to talk about it?"
Naruto gave a low keening whine, turning his face slightly so she could see his eyes were puffy and red. "Oh, otouto." She gathered him into a hug. "Tell me what's wrong?" She had to lean in close to hear his response, but what she heard made her frown. "Bullshit. You're not a monster. You're a twelve year old boy with more determination and heart than anyone else I know."
"You don't understand," he said dully, sitting up. "The Hokage explained why everyone hates me. I'm the Kyuubi."
"The villagers that hate you do so because they are petty, stupid, and short-sighted, not because of you. Besides, I think I'd notice if my brother were a three story tall manifestation of pure chakra," she said dryly, wishing she could just tell him she knew and didn't care to get it over with. But she needed him to say it. She had no plausible reason to know.
"We were born on the day it attacked Konoha." She nodded. She knew that full well. Naruto swallowed hard. "And the Yondaime didn't kill it. It couldn't be killed. Instead he sealed it. Into me."
She bit her lip for just a second. Naruto searched her face, clearly desperate for her reaction.
"That means it's in you, not that it's you. I don't care, and neither does anyone who matters. The Hokage clearly doesn't think there's anything wrong with you, does he?" At Naruto's expression, she continued, "If the civilian villagers know, so do all the older nin. Iruka likes you a lot. He knows you're not the Nine-tails. So does Sensei. Doesn't what they think matter? They're both a lot smarter and better informed than the grumpy old civilian man who sells cabbages and gives us the stink-eye every time we walk past. What the fuck would he know about ninja business?"
"I… I guess. You really don't care?" The real twelve-year old sat up, rubbing at an eye fiercely with the back of a hand. She gently stopped him, and made sure she was looking directly into his face and tried to put as much sincerity as possible into her face and voice.
"I don't care if you have a dozen demons sealed in you. You're as human as it gets, and anyone would sense would realize that keeping the Kyuubi locked up inside you makes you a hero."
He sniffled pathetically, trying to look aloof. "That's convenient. A theory about the world that makes you the only one with sense."
"That sounds about right," she said blankly, falling into their usual banter.
They cuddled in silence, just soaking in being together. Naruto gently tapped her shoulder. "Hey, Aiko." At her inquisitive look, he continued. "Were you making cookies when I came in?"
She sighed. "I'll get them." Her brother followed her to the kitchen trailing blankets. "Want to see if there's a good movie on?" she called. Naruto shrugged.
"Okay." The television flickered on, and the jumble of voices and sounds that followed indicated that he was flipping through channels. "Want to watch a sappy romance flick?" he called hopefully.
Aiko shuddered, making a face. "Agh, you're killing me." She sighed. "Only because I love you," she muttered bitterly. Her brother must have heard, because he set the tv on a channel she definitely never watched on her own. Naruto was just so very full of feelings. She slid the gooey, hot cookies off the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack, putting four of them directly on a porcelain plate. Aiko then put her advanced ninja skills to good use balancing two glasses of milk and the hot cookies on her way into the living room. She stopped in her tracks as soon as she crossed the threshold. "Wow," she said dumbly. "You've gotten really fast about making pillow forts."
Her brother gave her an exaggerated, goofy smirk he had to have learned from Sasuke. It was adorable. His nose went up in the air and he snootily explained that "You can't watch a movie without a pillow fort."
She sat down next to him. "I thought that was just monster movies, and an excuse for you to snuggle when you got scared," she taunted.
Her brother flushed bright red. "Don't- don't say such ridiculous things! I'm a ninja. Ninja aren't scared of monster movies. No matter how big the lizards are."
"At least one ninja is," she sing-songed before she had to roll away to escape his hands when he lunged at her.
"Mean oneesan! Take that back!"