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edenfallingThis is the sequel to "The Way of the Apartment Manager," which can be found in clean draft here on ff.net, or in rough draft with comments here on my livejournal. It also has fanart, which can be found here.
I'm not wild about the Sasuke-POV scene -- I don't like the pacing of the first part -- but there was no real way to break it up with dialogue. If anyone can think of a way to improve it, I'm all ears! *grin* Anyway, I'm posting this without waiting a day or two to get some perspective on the final two scenes, so I'm sure there are kludgy bits. Please tell me where they are so I can fix them!
Also, I finally managed to introduce Amane Eiji, the fourth POV character. I hope you like him, or, if not, I hope you can at least understand where he's coming from.
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The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 4
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"Rika called me down to break up another fight on the docks this morning -- I came damn close to killing someone before your new guards backed off. Are you certain we can make this work, Eiji?"
Amane Eiji looked up from a cargo manifest as his brother-in-law climbed through his office window. "It's a bit late for that question," he pointed out, restraining his irritation. "We've moved far enough that if we can't pull it off, we're both dead men walking."
Ginji closed the window, cutting off the pleasant breeze Eiji had been enjoying, and raked a hand through his dark hair so it stood up even more wildly than usual. "I don't like it. Hiring a few missing-nin is one thing -- everyone understand economics, and I can look the other way, especially if they're from Sand or Leaf -- but this... They're not even skilled shinobi, and they have no self-control. They draw too much attention."
He drew a kunai and began flipping it from hand to hand; tiny sparks leapt from his fingers to bare steel and back again, a sure sign of tension. "You made a convincing argument for picking up speed, but there's only so much I can cover before I get called back to Cloud, or before a team passes through and notices something out of place. Everyone in town supports you, but they're only civilians. They're useless against shinobi. We need allies, Eiji, and we need them soon."
Civilians were far from useless, by any definition of the word, but Eiji understood Ginji's worry. He set aside his papers and steepled his fingers, watching Ginji steadily. "I have good news on that front. Takeshi's ship docked yesterday and he has a message from a group of missing-nin based in River Country. They helped him out of a tight spot in Water Country, he paid them standard rates and gave them the pitch, and now they're sending representatives to meet us in person. Takeshi says they have ten members, all jounin-level."
Ginji's blue eyes narrowed and sharpened. "Ten jounin? That stinks like rotting fish guts, Eiji. Missing-nin on that level don't work together, not in more than pairs. Trust me -- I don't tell you how to load the ships, and you don't cut deals with shinobi until I look them over. You don't understand us."
"And I'm perfectly happy not understanding," Eiji countered. "Why should I want to understand how people can willingly train children to be killers, and how they can deliberately keep our countries weak, disorganized, and constantly in chaos just so they can kill more people and claim to be necessary? Why should I want to understand the people who taught you never to laugh? You're still inside the system, no matter how much Tetsuko and I try to pull you back out."
He held Ginji's eyes for a long moment, willing his oldest friend to understand, to break free from the training that still chained his emotions even though he'd turned against it. Ginji sighed, and then the corners of his mouth quirked upward the faintest amount, more like the ghost of an expression than a true smile.
"One of us needs to understand," Ginji said dryly, "or we'll all be dead before anything changes. No matter how many people you convince to hate the hidden villages, civilians can't stand up to shinobi in a fight. And no matter how much you talk about indoctrination and suppression of personalities, the system works. The higher you go, the more it hooks into your brain, and the less you care about people in general. Jounin care about their villages and perhaps a few particular people; missing-nin don't even care about their former villages. Ten jounin-level missing-nin working together... I don't know what could keep them from turning on each other, but whatever it is, it's bound to be dangerous."
He stuffed the kunai back into his holster and walked to the window. "Let them come -- just one, no partners -- and don't meet him without me. You can't be reckless anymore, Eiji. For one thing, Tetsuko will kill me if you make her a widow, and for another, I don't know anything about raising children... unless you want Mitsuko to end up as a kunoichi." Another ghost-smile flickered across his lips. Then he was gone.
Eiji cracked his fingers, leaned back in his chair, and wished, for the thousandth time, that Ginji had never been sponsored into the ninja academy in Hidden Cloud, or that he and Tetsuko had talked him out of the training instead of cheering him on.
Nevertheless, it was true that Ginji was an invaluable resource on any number of levels: spy, window into the ninja mindset, bodyguard, master of the security department, tacit threat to their growing cadre of missing-nin. And he was getting better. He could make jokes again. He could let Tetsuko hug him and ruffle his hair without tensing or displacing himself across the room. He could even talk to Mitsu-chan and let her climb on his shoulders without going stiff and silent to hide flashbacks to children he'd killed.
Eiji looked at Takeshi's report again. Ten jounin-level missing-nin. There was really no way he could afford to pass up the opportunity; he'd send word to the perimeter guards so they'd let the representatives into town. Whatever Akatsuki's ultimate goal was -- if Ginji said they had one, Eiji believed him -- they undoubtedly had no love for their former villages, or for the international system those villages supported.
Eiji could work with that.
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"Are you certain this is wise, Naga-chan?" Tonoike Taizen asked.
"Yes," Naga said, and went back to scribbling her name on the discharge papers and the bill for her hospital stay. She leaned on the main desk, giving her slashed leg a bit of respite, and refused to show how much she ached.
"You should stay here at least one more night in case there are unforeseen side-effects of that genjutsu, or an infection in your leg wound," her mother continued, as if Naga hadn't said anything. "We can certainly afford it. I understand the appeal of resting in your own bed at home, but I'll be busy and your father is leaving on a mission in two hours, so we won't be within earshot if you need unexpected help."
Naga looked up. "Dad has a mission? Since when?"
"It is extremely short notice," her mother agreed, adjusting her cherry-blossom kimono with a sharp gesture, "but all available personnel are required to search for potential surviving Uchiha, to fill in for the military police, or to adopt the missions of any Uchiha who are confirmed dead. Bashoto is going south to the island countries. He may not return for months." Her hands fiddled with her obi, a sure sign of irritation; normally Taizen wouldn't dream of showing any uncontrolled emotion.
Naga shoved the discharge papers and bill over the desk to the hospital secretaries, and limped across the lobby to the main doors. Her mother reached them first and held them open for her. Naga let her breath out in an irritated hiss -- she hated being patronized -- but she had to admit it was nice not to strain herself pulling on things. Taizen fell in beside her and filled the silence with a mild discourse on the past week's weather, which Naga listened to without really paying attention. She was trying to figure out how to break the news of her own mission to her mother without starting an argument.
Several minutes later, as they turned down the alley behind the teahouse, she decided there probably wasn't a way to do that -- so she might as well just say it. "It's all right if Dad's gone; I have a mission too. I leave tomorrow."
Her mother went very still, like a snake waiting to strike. Naga fought the urge to hunch her shoulders.
"Who assigned this?" Taizen asked, too softly.
"I volunteered," Naga mumbled. "Can we go inside?"
"In a minute. You volunteered? In your state of health? Who accepted this?"
Naga whirled, catching her balance with a hand on their neighbor's back wall. "Mother. I'm shinobi. I'm a chuunin. It's my choice if I go on missions, not yours, so stop acting like I'm a baby!" She drew a deep breath. "I'm tracking Uchiha Itachi. It makes sense, since he can't copy my taijutsu and I've seen what he can do."
Taizen was ominously still.
"Kakashi's leading the mission."
Taizen sighed, and let her shoulders slump a fraction. "Hatake Kakashi. I should have known." She sighed again, and reached to unlock their apartment door. "It does make sense, and I trust you to know whether or not you're capable of mission-level performance, but Uchiha Itachi most likely could have passed the jounin exam if he'd wanted, and now with unknown new techniques in his possession..."
Naga adjusted the hang of her vest and avoided her mother's eyes. "Fine. I won't tell you not to worry, if you won't tell me not to go."
Everything went still again, for a long second -- Naga wished, yet again, that her mother would teach her how to project threat so effectively -- until the opening door knocked gently against the inner wall. "Go inside and lie down," Taizen said. "If you have a mission tomorrow, you need all the rest you can get. And please remember that I am-- I was shinobi as well. Concern for my daughter is not the same as advising you to betray your duty."
Face burning, Naga slunk through the door.
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The meeting with Soujiro-san, the architect, Yura, and Uncle Yutaro left Yukiko wondering if she'd fallen asleep or had been trapped in a peculiarly convincing genjutsu that stretched and bent time like saltwater taffy. Explaining things to Yutaro only took twenty minutes -- he had a firm grasp of business rates and already knew Soujiro-san through his role in the Konoha Chamber of Commerce. Pinning Yura down on the details of her restaurant, on the other hand... After the first half hour, Yukiko began having headache-inducing flashbacks to the times she and Yuichiro had been forced to baby-sit Yura and the younger cousins. Yura loathed being under someone else's authority, and she practically drew blood for every firm decision her father squeezed from her.
By five o'clock, Yukiko had lost all patience and essentially shoved her relatives out the door. "You can work out the rest of the details on your own time, when you're not costing me money," she said. "Just don't forget to run them by the interior designer and Soujiro-san. Good-bye." She shut the lobby door and hurried back to her office.
Soujiro-san favored her with a wry smile as he gathered his papers and helped the dazed architect stand up from his chair. "Family and business can be a tricky combination," he said.
"Yeah. I think I'm actually grateful my mission got rescheduled," Yukiko said, leaning against the wall. "If Yura wants to fight someone, better Uncle Yutaro than me."
"I'm surprised she has the nerve to fight your uncle," the architect said. "She has spirit. And she's awfully pretty..."
"She also has a wildly possessive ninja fiancé," Yukiko said dryly. "Hands off, unless you like getting mauled by dogs."
The architect sighed and slid his diagrams into his satchel. "All the good ones are taken. Oh well, it's a big town and the girls can't all go for ninja. Don't worry, Yukiko-san -- we'll have everything on schedule when you get back." He followed Soujiro-san out of her office, and waved cheerfully as Yukiko showed them out the front door.
She shuffled back to her office, planning to put away her paperwork and collapse before Naruto came looking for dinner. That plan lasted until she opened the door -- the shadows on her desk were wrong.
"It's only me," Kakashi said, as Yukiko's hands slammed together in a tiger seal. "And while it might be useful to practice getting swamped by extremely painful genjutsu, I'd prefer to avoid that for the moment."
Yukiko let her hands fall to her sides and frowned at the jounin who had unofficially adopted her team during her last chuunin exam, and who had, for reasons she'd never been able to pry out of him, continued insinuating himself into their lives. He was slouched in the corner, putting on a reasonably good imitation of a lazy good-for-nothing, if you didn't pay attention to the balanced set of his feet or the chill behind his one visible eye. Kakashi was a very dangerous man, and Yukiko hated the way he could slip past all the traps she set around her private spaces; she was nearly a hundred percent sure he wouldn't hurt her, the kid, or any of the tenants, but you never really knew with assassins. Besides, he was incredibly annoying when he felt like it, and he insisted on reading pornographic books in front of Naruto.
"You have Sharingan," she said, unable to keep a slight accusing tone from her voice. "You shouldn't need experience dealing with genjutsu aftereffects."
"Ah, but if I don't uncover the eye, it doesn't do me any good... and Naga said that Itachi's new technique is resistant to the usual genjutsu counters. I'd rather not gamble on whether that includes a borrowed Sharingan." Kakashi shrugged, and ambled over to sit on Yukiko's desk.
Yukiko sighed and went to rescue her papers. "Watch where you put your ass," she said, tapping him on the hip; he shifted his weight and she pulled her blueprints into the open.
"I'd much rather watch your ass," Kakashi said, and Yukiko could feel his cheerful leer as she turned away and opened a file cabinet drawer.
"Go ahead. My price is a free ramen dinner for me and the kid-- well, kids, now. Which reminds me." She shut the drawer and met Kakashi's eye, staring past the affable overlay to the darkness underneath. "If, by some horrible chance, all the rescue missions fail and Uchiha Tsukime never wakes up, will you promise to help Sasuke wake his Sharingan and learn to use it? I can teach him genjutsu basics, but I don't have a clue how to focus illusions through the eyes and the ninjutsu and taijutsu aspects are completely not my field."
Kakashi was utterly still for maybe half a breath, and then he shrugged fluidly. "Of course; debts must be paid. I'm leaving on a mission tomorrow, though, so I'll need a rain check on dinner."
"Fine -- my mission got rescheduled for tomorrow as well. Is yours classified, or can I ask?"
"You can ask."
Yukiko waited, and then mentally smacked herself; she should know better than to feed Kakashi straight lines. "What's your mission?"
"It's quite straightforward, although it may take quite a while. Uchiha Itachi is now the most immediately dangerous missing-nin on our books. Somebody has to hunt him." Kakashi paused, letting Yukiko absorb the implications. "Naga is my partner."
Yukiko scowled. She knew an injured teammate could eat at your gut like acid, and she wouldn't begrudge anyone the right to sanctioned revenge, but... "She's recovered enough for that? You didn't see her before she woke up yesterday -- she was barely breathing, and the medics were talking about brain-death."
"Really? She seemed quite lively when I stopped by to visit yesterday evening, and I saw her running through kata just an hour ago." Kakashi's eye narrowed slightly. "Brain-death?"
"Itachi did a serious number on her. Genjutsu can't kill directly -- push too hard and the body just goes unconscious -- but whatever Itachi does might not have the same restrictions." Yukiko touched her forehead protector and ran her hand through her hair, tugging on the ends. "Look, just... be careful."
"I promised to teach Sasuke -- I can't do that if I'm dead." Kakashi shrugged and waved off the topic as if brushing away a falling leaf. "So, what are you doing?"
"Investigating a businessman -- he's in shipping -- and then running interference while he gets killed." Yukiko frowned. "I've never done assassination before."
"You get used to it," Kakashi said. "Location?"
"Sky Country." Yukiko sighed. "Itachi's throwing everything off schedule; I was supposed to have two more weeks off but here I am, running off in the middle of a business deal and leaving Sasuke alone when Sarutobi-sama specifically told me he shouldn't be alone right now. I will be so happy when that weasel dies."
"Well, that's what we're here for."
"That and distracting me from my job. Okay, you've notified me -- now shoo. I want to get some work done before I have to leave Yusuke in charge again."
"He won't learn if you do everything for him," Kakashi said. "Sometimes students need room to fail. But maybe business is different from being shinobi."
He slipped out her window before Yukiko could answer.
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Sasuke woke at sunrise. The room felt wrong, so he didn't move; instead, he peered out through slivered eyes and clenched his fingers on the kunai under his pillow. When he recognized his new apartment, he rolled over and set the knife on his nightstand. That was one good thing about living on his own: nobody could tell him not to sleep with weapons in his hands. The blue-haired woman hadn't said anything when he packed his practice kunai, and she'd only nodded when he took his father's knives and shuriken as well.
Well, she was a ninja, even if she probably wasn't a good one.
His alarm clock was set for nine; he shouldn't have woken up so early. He didn't need to get up early to catch Itachi at breakfast any--
Sasuke clenched his hands. His nails dug into soft cotton instead of skin; he'd forgotten to take off the woman's bandages yesterday. He opened his hands and started to unwrap the left one... and then decided not to. He needed his hands to be a ninja.
He also needed to eat, and breakfast wouldn't cook itself. Sasuke trudged over to the corner that was his kitchen, trying not to trip over the cuffs of his too-long pajamas.
He burned the miso -- the smoke alarm's shrill beeping startled him so badly he almost scalded himself with the soup, and he had to spend a minute flapping a towel at the device to make it turn off -- but Sasuke made himself eat anyway. He had to be strong, and anyway, burnt soup was nothing compared to--
He poured the half-finished bowl down the sink and pushed himself through exercises until his shirt was damp with sweat, his legs and arms burned, and air seemed to scrape his throat raw as he breathed.
Then he showered, dressed, and dragged his new chair over to the open window. He rested his arms on the windowsill and stared out at Konoha; the apartment was high enough that he could see over most of the houses and watch ninja trace crooked paths through the architecture while civilians walked along beneath them. The air smelled like summer, warm and dry, and bird calls drifted on the gentle breeze. Finally, Sasuke decided it was late enough that the orange boy -- Naruto -- was definitely at the academy.
Naruto bothered Sasuke. He was loud and stupid and wore bright colors, which was all wrong for a ninja. He was one of the idiots who always interrupted Iruka-sensei and asked pointless questions -- Sasuke remembered him now that he'd had time to think, even though he'd never bothered to learn Naruto's name before. There hadn't been any reason to learn his name.
Sasuke didn't want to know Naruto, and he didn't want to live next to him. He didn't want to see the idiot outside of the academy. Naruto bounced, he played jokes, and he was cheerful all the time; nobody could really be that happy, especially not when people insulted him and treated him like the idiot he was. He had to be hiding something, and Sasuke didn't like secrets.
Secrets hurt.
He wrapped bandages around his thigh and tucked his father's shuriken between the layers of cloth -- he only cut himself twice, which was good. He'd learn to do it better. Then he locked his door, just in case, and went to look at the back yard; his knees wobbled on the long flights of stairs, but he didn't let himself hold the railing for support. Ninja couldn't afford support.
The back yard was more than just a yard -- it was almost like a small park. A large patch of grass spread out from the apartment building, surrounded by trees on three sides, and stretched nearly two hundred feet until it reached the base of the village wall. To the left, a low fence marked the property line. There had clearly been a matching fence on the right, but somebody had pulled it out recently and filled in the post-holes with loose dirt, which meant that the yard now extended another hundred feet or so, all the way past the neighboring building. Bright orange cloth tags on short sticks marched across the ground; either they marked something underground, or they outlined the stupidest obstacle course Sasuke had ever seen. Maybe Naruto had put them there. The moron liked orange.
The park in the center of the Uchiha district was nicer -- Sasuke missed the shush and slap of tiny waves along the shore of the pond -- but this would do. There were even two target boards set up near the soaring bulk of the town wall, and smaller paint splashes at various tricky spots on several trees. Sasuke had missed target practice yesterday, if Naruto had been telling the truth. He couldn't afford to fall behind the rest of the class.
His shoulders ached when he drew back his arms to throw the shuriken, and his knees wouldn't always hold firm. That was all right, Sasuke told himself when he missed the target for the twentieth time. Ita-- that man was a lot stronger than he was, so he'd probably have a hard time when he fought him. He'd have to learn to fight even when he was tired or hurt.
After a while, though, he pulled a shuriken from the tree where his latest wild throw had sent it, and lay down on the grass. It was a warm day; the afternoon sun felt soft and heavy on his back as he rested, and it wouldn't hurt to rest for just a minute. Sasuke stuck the shuriken into the ground where he could grab it in half a second, and closed his eyes.
If he didn't look at the blue-haired woman's yard, he could pretend he was behind his own house instead. On a day like this, his mother would open the window and offer him something to drink, or his father might suddenly appear and lecture him for stealing his shuriken. Maybe even Itachi would come out and sit beside him, and then pick up the shuriken and show Sasuke how to hold his wrist to make sure the weapon stayed level as it flew...
His legs were chilly. Sasuke blinked, reaching for the shuriken, and realized that the sun had moved and the tree's shadow had slid over half his body. He'd fallen asleep.
He was also incredibly hungry; he probably wouldn't be able to train until he ate something. Sasuke pushed himself upright, frowning as his sore body argued for more rest, and walked around the building to the front door. As he headed down the hallway toward the rear staircase, he heard voices behind the woman's office door. He slowed to listen.
"--done assassination before," the woman said.
"You get used to it," a strange man answered. "Location?"
"Sky Country." The woman sighed. "Itachi's throwing everything off schedule; I was supposed to have two more weeks off but here I am, running off in the middle of a business deal and leaving Sasuke alone when Sarutobi-sama specifically told me he shouldn't be alone right now. I will be so happy when that weasel dies."
"Well, that's what we're here for."
"That and distracting me from my job. Okay, you've notified me -- now shoo. I want to get some work done before I have to leave Yusuke in charge again."
There was a tiny pause, and then the man said, "He won't learn if you do everything for him. Sometimes students need room to fail. But maybe business is different from being shinobi."
Something rustled, and then Sasuke heard footsteps and the sound of a window slamming shut. He hurried toward the stairs, before the woman could open her door and realize that he'd been listening. He didn't want to look at her right now.
That woman was an assassin, and she was going to kill his broth-- kill that man.
Itachi needed to die! But Sasuke needed to kill him. If he didn't kill Itachi, then why was he still alive? If he didn't kill Itachi, then he might as well be dead like everyone else... and besides, Itachi wanted Sasuke to kill him. He'd said so -- he told Sasuke to hate him, and get strong.
Sasuke was so distracted that he didn't notice the stairwell door was open, which it shouldn't have been. He didn't hear the door close behind him with a muffled click. He didn't see the flash of orange in the muted electric light.
He did, however, notice when Naruto punched his gut and tried to put him in a headlock.
Thirty rather confused seconds later, Sasuke had Naruto pinned facedown on the floor with a shuriken against his throat. Naruto thrashed once, testing, and then went limp. "Bastard," he muttered.
"Moron," Sasuke said, pressing his knee into Naruto's back. "I'm not the one who attacked a better ninja for no reason."
"Hey! You're not better than me, and I did too have a reason -- I told you yesterday I was gonna kick your ass! And you were spying on Yukiko-neechan, so you totally deserved it." Naruto pinched Sasuke's ankle, distracting him for a bare second -- he jerked his head away from the shuriken -- and shoved upwards with his other hand, toppling Sasuke off his back. He scrambled to his feet, and Sasuke followed, cursing his still-weak knees. "So, so, what did you hear?"
Sasuke blinked. "...What?"
Naruto sniffed disdainfully and folded his arms, which was utterly stupid in the middle of a fight. "Hey, hey, and you say I'm a moron? You were listening to Yukiko-neechan, you went all pale like rotten milk, and you didn't even notice me waiting, so she had to be talking about something important, yeah? So what was it?"
"None of your business."
"Tell me, or I'll tell her you were spying. I'll say you tried to kill me -- my neck's bleeding, see, so she'll believe me! And what kind of bastard uses shuriken in a fight? That's cheating!"
Sasuke tried to fit everything he couldn't figure out how to say -- that they were ninja, that there was no such thing as a fair fight or cheating, that nobody in his right mind would ever believe an idiot like Naruto -- into his glare. Naruto didn't even notice.
"...She's going to kill my brother," Sasuke said, after a minute.
Naruto's blue eyes stretched wide in horror. "No way! Yukiko-neechan's too nice to do anything like that! Unless... hey, hey, is your brother evil? Is he the one who killed your family? It was your family that all got killed last week, right? If your brother did that, he's really evil -- you don't kill family!"
"He killed them," Sasuke said, "so I'm going to kill him."
"No, Yukiko-neechan's gonna kill him," Naruto corrected. "Besides, you suck as a ninja -- if he's good enough to kill all your family, then he'd kick your ass."
"If I suck, you suck more!"
Naruto growled, while Sasuke tried to figure out why he'd just said that. He wasn't supposed to get distracted by idiots -- he had to be calm and controlled, like Ita-- like a good ninja, if he wanted to catch up to that man. But... what was the point anymore?
"Hey, hey, I'm talking to you! Pay attention, bastard!" Naruto snapped his fingers in Sasuke's face, and Sasuke snarled at him. "Hey, I just thought of something. You want to kill your brother, right? And Yukiko-neechan's gonna 'sassinate him. So why don't we sneak along and help her?"
Sasuke sputtered for a moment, and then fell back on glaring. "Moron. If she's good enough to kill him, she'd catch me following. And you wouldn't be there."
Naruto grinned like a cat that had just scooped a decorative fish out of a koi pond and found a way to blame the mess on a nearby dog. "I would so -- I know how to make this work. See, see, I know how to play tricks on her, and I know how her missions work; she tells me all that stuff. She goes undercover with traders." He leaned in close and whispered into Sasuke's ear. "Tell me where she's going -- I can get us into the caravan and by the time anyone finds us, we'll be too far away for them to send us back."
Sasuke shoved the idiot away. But as he moved past Naruto, toward the stairs, he muttered, "Sky Country."
He could feel Naruto's grin itching on the back of his neck until he reached the landing and escaped.
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End of Chapter Four
Back to chapter 3
Continue to chapter 5
Read the clean version here on ff.net
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Iruka was supposed to appear in a final scene, but I had to move that for length and pacing reasons. I swear I will get him into this story somehow!
I'm not wild about the Sasuke-POV scene -- I don't like the pacing of the first part -- but there was no real way to break it up with dialogue. If anyone can think of a way to improve it, I'm all ears! *grin* Anyway, I'm posting this without waiting a day or two to get some perspective on the final two scenes, so I'm sure there are kludgy bits. Please tell me where they are so I can fix them!
Also, I finally managed to introduce Amane Eiji, the fourth POV character. I hope you like him, or, if not, I hope you can at least understand where he's coming from.
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The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 4
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"Rika called me down to break up another fight on the docks this morning -- I came damn close to killing someone before your new guards backed off. Are you certain we can make this work, Eiji?"
Amane Eiji looked up from a cargo manifest as his brother-in-law climbed through his office window. "It's a bit late for that question," he pointed out, restraining his irritation. "We've moved far enough that if we can't pull it off, we're both dead men walking."
Ginji closed the window, cutting off the pleasant breeze Eiji had been enjoying, and raked a hand through his dark hair so it stood up even more wildly than usual. "I don't like it. Hiring a few missing-nin is one thing -- everyone understand economics, and I can look the other way, especially if they're from Sand or Leaf -- but this... They're not even skilled shinobi, and they have no self-control. They draw too much attention."
He drew a kunai and began flipping it from hand to hand; tiny sparks leapt from his fingers to bare steel and back again, a sure sign of tension. "You made a convincing argument for picking up speed, but there's only so much I can cover before I get called back to Cloud, or before a team passes through and notices something out of place. Everyone in town supports you, but they're only civilians. They're useless against shinobi. We need allies, Eiji, and we need them soon."
Civilians were far from useless, by any definition of the word, but Eiji understood Ginji's worry. He set aside his papers and steepled his fingers, watching Ginji steadily. "I have good news on that front. Takeshi's ship docked yesterday and he has a message from a group of missing-nin based in River Country. They helped him out of a tight spot in Water Country, he paid them standard rates and gave them the pitch, and now they're sending representatives to meet us in person. Takeshi says they have ten members, all jounin-level."
Ginji's blue eyes narrowed and sharpened. "Ten jounin? That stinks like rotting fish guts, Eiji. Missing-nin on that level don't work together, not in more than pairs. Trust me -- I don't tell you how to load the ships, and you don't cut deals with shinobi until I look them over. You don't understand us."
"And I'm perfectly happy not understanding," Eiji countered. "Why should I want to understand how people can willingly train children to be killers, and how they can deliberately keep our countries weak, disorganized, and constantly in chaos just so they can kill more people and claim to be necessary? Why should I want to understand the people who taught you never to laugh? You're still inside the system, no matter how much Tetsuko and I try to pull you back out."
He held Ginji's eyes for a long moment, willing his oldest friend to understand, to break free from the training that still chained his emotions even though he'd turned against it. Ginji sighed, and then the corners of his mouth quirked upward the faintest amount, more like the ghost of an expression than a true smile.
"One of us needs to understand," Ginji said dryly, "or we'll all be dead before anything changes. No matter how many people you convince to hate the hidden villages, civilians can't stand up to shinobi in a fight. And no matter how much you talk about indoctrination and suppression of personalities, the system works. The higher you go, the more it hooks into your brain, and the less you care about people in general. Jounin care about their villages and perhaps a few particular people; missing-nin don't even care about their former villages. Ten jounin-level missing-nin working together... I don't know what could keep them from turning on each other, but whatever it is, it's bound to be dangerous."
He stuffed the kunai back into his holster and walked to the window. "Let them come -- just one, no partners -- and don't meet him without me. You can't be reckless anymore, Eiji. For one thing, Tetsuko will kill me if you make her a widow, and for another, I don't know anything about raising children... unless you want Mitsuko to end up as a kunoichi." Another ghost-smile flickered across his lips. Then he was gone.
Eiji cracked his fingers, leaned back in his chair, and wished, for the thousandth time, that Ginji had never been sponsored into the ninja academy in Hidden Cloud, or that he and Tetsuko had talked him out of the training instead of cheering him on.
Nevertheless, it was true that Ginji was an invaluable resource on any number of levels: spy, window into the ninja mindset, bodyguard, master of the security department, tacit threat to their growing cadre of missing-nin. And he was getting better. He could make jokes again. He could let Tetsuko hug him and ruffle his hair without tensing or displacing himself across the room. He could even talk to Mitsu-chan and let her climb on his shoulders without going stiff and silent to hide flashbacks to children he'd killed.
Eiji looked at Takeshi's report again. Ten jounin-level missing-nin. There was really no way he could afford to pass up the opportunity; he'd send word to the perimeter guards so they'd let the representatives into town. Whatever Akatsuki's ultimate goal was -- if Ginji said they had one, Eiji believed him -- they undoubtedly had no love for their former villages, or for the international system those villages supported.
Eiji could work with that.
---------------------------------------------
"Are you certain this is wise, Naga-chan?" Tonoike Taizen asked.
"Yes," Naga said, and went back to scribbling her name on the discharge papers and the bill for her hospital stay. She leaned on the main desk, giving her slashed leg a bit of respite, and refused to show how much she ached.
"You should stay here at least one more night in case there are unforeseen side-effects of that genjutsu, or an infection in your leg wound," her mother continued, as if Naga hadn't said anything. "We can certainly afford it. I understand the appeal of resting in your own bed at home, but I'll be busy and your father is leaving on a mission in two hours, so we won't be within earshot if you need unexpected help."
Naga looked up. "Dad has a mission? Since when?"
"It is extremely short notice," her mother agreed, adjusting her cherry-blossom kimono with a sharp gesture, "but all available personnel are required to search for potential surviving Uchiha, to fill in for the military police, or to adopt the missions of any Uchiha who are confirmed dead. Bashoto is going south to the island countries. He may not return for months." Her hands fiddled with her obi, a sure sign of irritation; normally Taizen wouldn't dream of showing any uncontrolled emotion.
Naga shoved the discharge papers and bill over the desk to the hospital secretaries, and limped across the lobby to the main doors. Her mother reached them first and held them open for her. Naga let her breath out in an irritated hiss -- she hated being patronized -- but she had to admit it was nice not to strain herself pulling on things. Taizen fell in beside her and filled the silence with a mild discourse on the past week's weather, which Naga listened to without really paying attention. She was trying to figure out how to break the news of her own mission to her mother without starting an argument.
Several minutes later, as they turned down the alley behind the teahouse, she decided there probably wasn't a way to do that -- so she might as well just say it. "It's all right if Dad's gone; I have a mission too. I leave tomorrow."
Her mother went very still, like a snake waiting to strike. Naga fought the urge to hunch her shoulders.
"Who assigned this?" Taizen asked, too softly.
"I volunteered," Naga mumbled. "Can we go inside?"
"In a minute. You volunteered? In your state of health? Who accepted this?"
Naga whirled, catching her balance with a hand on their neighbor's back wall. "Mother. I'm shinobi. I'm a chuunin. It's my choice if I go on missions, not yours, so stop acting like I'm a baby!" She drew a deep breath. "I'm tracking Uchiha Itachi. It makes sense, since he can't copy my taijutsu and I've seen what he can do."
Taizen was ominously still.
"Kakashi's leading the mission."
Taizen sighed, and let her shoulders slump a fraction. "Hatake Kakashi. I should have known." She sighed again, and reached to unlock their apartment door. "It does make sense, and I trust you to know whether or not you're capable of mission-level performance, but Uchiha Itachi most likely could have passed the jounin exam if he'd wanted, and now with unknown new techniques in his possession..."
Naga adjusted the hang of her vest and avoided her mother's eyes. "Fine. I won't tell you not to worry, if you won't tell me not to go."
Everything went still again, for a long second -- Naga wished, yet again, that her mother would teach her how to project threat so effectively -- until the opening door knocked gently against the inner wall. "Go inside and lie down," Taizen said. "If you have a mission tomorrow, you need all the rest you can get. And please remember that I am-- I was shinobi as well. Concern for my daughter is not the same as advising you to betray your duty."
Face burning, Naga slunk through the door.
---------------------------------------------
The meeting with Soujiro-san, the architect, Yura, and Uncle Yutaro left Yukiko wondering if she'd fallen asleep or had been trapped in a peculiarly convincing genjutsu that stretched and bent time like saltwater taffy. Explaining things to Yutaro only took twenty minutes -- he had a firm grasp of business rates and already knew Soujiro-san through his role in the Konoha Chamber of Commerce. Pinning Yura down on the details of her restaurant, on the other hand... After the first half hour, Yukiko began having headache-inducing flashbacks to the times she and Yuichiro had been forced to baby-sit Yura and the younger cousins. Yura loathed being under someone else's authority, and she practically drew blood for every firm decision her father squeezed from her.
By five o'clock, Yukiko had lost all patience and essentially shoved her relatives out the door. "You can work out the rest of the details on your own time, when you're not costing me money," she said. "Just don't forget to run them by the interior designer and Soujiro-san. Good-bye." She shut the lobby door and hurried back to her office.
Soujiro-san favored her with a wry smile as he gathered his papers and helped the dazed architect stand up from his chair. "Family and business can be a tricky combination," he said.
"Yeah. I think I'm actually grateful my mission got rescheduled," Yukiko said, leaning against the wall. "If Yura wants to fight someone, better Uncle Yutaro than me."
"I'm surprised she has the nerve to fight your uncle," the architect said. "She has spirit. And she's awfully pretty..."
"She also has a wildly possessive ninja fiancé," Yukiko said dryly. "Hands off, unless you like getting mauled by dogs."
The architect sighed and slid his diagrams into his satchel. "All the good ones are taken. Oh well, it's a big town and the girls can't all go for ninja. Don't worry, Yukiko-san -- we'll have everything on schedule when you get back." He followed Soujiro-san out of her office, and waved cheerfully as Yukiko showed them out the front door.
She shuffled back to her office, planning to put away her paperwork and collapse before Naruto came looking for dinner. That plan lasted until she opened the door -- the shadows on her desk were wrong.
"It's only me," Kakashi said, as Yukiko's hands slammed together in a tiger seal. "And while it might be useful to practice getting swamped by extremely painful genjutsu, I'd prefer to avoid that for the moment."
Yukiko let her hands fall to her sides and frowned at the jounin who had unofficially adopted her team during her last chuunin exam, and who had, for reasons she'd never been able to pry out of him, continued insinuating himself into their lives. He was slouched in the corner, putting on a reasonably good imitation of a lazy good-for-nothing, if you didn't pay attention to the balanced set of his feet or the chill behind his one visible eye. Kakashi was a very dangerous man, and Yukiko hated the way he could slip past all the traps she set around her private spaces; she was nearly a hundred percent sure he wouldn't hurt her, the kid, or any of the tenants, but you never really knew with assassins. Besides, he was incredibly annoying when he felt like it, and he insisted on reading pornographic books in front of Naruto.
"You have Sharingan," she said, unable to keep a slight accusing tone from her voice. "You shouldn't need experience dealing with genjutsu aftereffects."
"Ah, but if I don't uncover the eye, it doesn't do me any good... and Naga said that Itachi's new technique is resistant to the usual genjutsu counters. I'd rather not gamble on whether that includes a borrowed Sharingan." Kakashi shrugged, and ambled over to sit on Yukiko's desk.
Yukiko sighed and went to rescue her papers. "Watch where you put your ass," she said, tapping him on the hip; he shifted his weight and she pulled her blueprints into the open.
"I'd much rather watch your ass," Kakashi said, and Yukiko could feel his cheerful leer as she turned away and opened a file cabinet drawer.
"Go ahead. My price is a free ramen dinner for me and the kid-- well, kids, now. Which reminds me." She shut the drawer and met Kakashi's eye, staring past the affable overlay to the darkness underneath. "If, by some horrible chance, all the rescue missions fail and Uchiha Tsukime never wakes up, will you promise to help Sasuke wake his Sharingan and learn to use it? I can teach him genjutsu basics, but I don't have a clue how to focus illusions through the eyes and the ninjutsu and taijutsu aspects are completely not my field."
Kakashi was utterly still for maybe half a breath, and then he shrugged fluidly. "Of course; debts must be paid. I'm leaving on a mission tomorrow, though, so I'll need a rain check on dinner."
"Fine -- my mission got rescheduled for tomorrow as well. Is yours classified, or can I ask?"
"You can ask."
Yukiko waited, and then mentally smacked herself; she should know better than to feed Kakashi straight lines. "What's your mission?"
"It's quite straightforward, although it may take quite a while. Uchiha Itachi is now the most immediately dangerous missing-nin on our books. Somebody has to hunt him." Kakashi paused, letting Yukiko absorb the implications. "Naga is my partner."
Yukiko scowled. She knew an injured teammate could eat at your gut like acid, and she wouldn't begrudge anyone the right to sanctioned revenge, but... "She's recovered enough for that? You didn't see her before she woke up yesterday -- she was barely breathing, and the medics were talking about brain-death."
"Really? She seemed quite lively when I stopped by to visit yesterday evening, and I saw her running through kata just an hour ago." Kakashi's eye narrowed slightly. "Brain-death?"
"Itachi did a serious number on her. Genjutsu can't kill directly -- push too hard and the body just goes unconscious -- but whatever Itachi does might not have the same restrictions." Yukiko touched her forehead protector and ran her hand through her hair, tugging on the ends. "Look, just... be careful."
"I promised to teach Sasuke -- I can't do that if I'm dead." Kakashi shrugged and waved off the topic as if brushing away a falling leaf. "So, what are you doing?"
"Investigating a businessman -- he's in shipping -- and then running interference while he gets killed." Yukiko frowned. "I've never done assassination before."
"You get used to it," Kakashi said. "Location?"
"Sky Country." Yukiko sighed. "Itachi's throwing everything off schedule; I was supposed to have two more weeks off but here I am, running off in the middle of a business deal and leaving Sasuke alone when Sarutobi-sama specifically told me he shouldn't be alone right now. I will be so happy when that weasel dies."
"Well, that's what we're here for."
"That and distracting me from my job. Okay, you've notified me -- now shoo. I want to get some work done before I have to leave Yusuke in charge again."
"He won't learn if you do everything for him," Kakashi said. "Sometimes students need room to fail. But maybe business is different from being shinobi."
He slipped out her window before Yukiko could answer.
---------------------------------------------
Sasuke woke at sunrise. The room felt wrong, so he didn't move; instead, he peered out through slivered eyes and clenched his fingers on the kunai under his pillow. When he recognized his new apartment, he rolled over and set the knife on his nightstand. That was one good thing about living on his own: nobody could tell him not to sleep with weapons in his hands. The blue-haired woman hadn't said anything when he packed his practice kunai, and she'd only nodded when he took his father's knives and shuriken as well.
Well, she was a ninja, even if she probably wasn't a good one.
His alarm clock was set for nine; he shouldn't have woken up so early. He didn't need to get up early to catch Itachi at breakfast any--
Sasuke clenched his hands. His nails dug into soft cotton instead of skin; he'd forgotten to take off the woman's bandages yesterday. He opened his hands and started to unwrap the left one... and then decided not to. He needed his hands to be a ninja.
He also needed to eat, and breakfast wouldn't cook itself. Sasuke trudged over to the corner that was his kitchen, trying not to trip over the cuffs of his too-long pajamas.
He burned the miso -- the smoke alarm's shrill beeping startled him so badly he almost scalded himself with the soup, and he had to spend a minute flapping a towel at the device to make it turn off -- but Sasuke made himself eat anyway. He had to be strong, and anyway, burnt soup was nothing compared to--
He poured the half-finished bowl down the sink and pushed himself through exercises until his shirt was damp with sweat, his legs and arms burned, and air seemed to scrape his throat raw as he breathed.
Then he showered, dressed, and dragged his new chair over to the open window. He rested his arms on the windowsill and stared out at Konoha; the apartment was high enough that he could see over most of the houses and watch ninja trace crooked paths through the architecture while civilians walked along beneath them. The air smelled like summer, warm and dry, and bird calls drifted on the gentle breeze. Finally, Sasuke decided it was late enough that the orange boy -- Naruto -- was definitely at the academy.
Naruto bothered Sasuke. He was loud and stupid and wore bright colors, which was all wrong for a ninja. He was one of the idiots who always interrupted Iruka-sensei and asked pointless questions -- Sasuke remembered him now that he'd had time to think, even though he'd never bothered to learn Naruto's name before. There hadn't been any reason to learn his name.
Sasuke didn't want to know Naruto, and he didn't want to live next to him. He didn't want to see the idiot outside of the academy. Naruto bounced, he played jokes, and he was cheerful all the time; nobody could really be that happy, especially not when people insulted him and treated him like the idiot he was. He had to be hiding something, and Sasuke didn't like secrets.
Secrets hurt.
He wrapped bandages around his thigh and tucked his father's shuriken between the layers of cloth -- he only cut himself twice, which was good. He'd learn to do it better. Then he locked his door, just in case, and went to look at the back yard; his knees wobbled on the long flights of stairs, but he didn't let himself hold the railing for support. Ninja couldn't afford support.
The back yard was more than just a yard -- it was almost like a small park. A large patch of grass spread out from the apartment building, surrounded by trees on three sides, and stretched nearly two hundred feet until it reached the base of the village wall. To the left, a low fence marked the property line. There had clearly been a matching fence on the right, but somebody had pulled it out recently and filled in the post-holes with loose dirt, which meant that the yard now extended another hundred feet or so, all the way past the neighboring building. Bright orange cloth tags on short sticks marched across the ground; either they marked something underground, or they outlined the stupidest obstacle course Sasuke had ever seen. Maybe Naruto had put them there. The moron liked orange.
The park in the center of the Uchiha district was nicer -- Sasuke missed the shush and slap of tiny waves along the shore of the pond -- but this would do. There were even two target boards set up near the soaring bulk of the town wall, and smaller paint splashes at various tricky spots on several trees. Sasuke had missed target practice yesterday, if Naruto had been telling the truth. He couldn't afford to fall behind the rest of the class.
His shoulders ached when he drew back his arms to throw the shuriken, and his knees wouldn't always hold firm. That was all right, Sasuke told himself when he missed the target for the twentieth time. Ita-- that man was a lot stronger than he was, so he'd probably have a hard time when he fought him. He'd have to learn to fight even when he was tired or hurt.
After a while, though, he pulled a shuriken from the tree where his latest wild throw had sent it, and lay down on the grass. It was a warm day; the afternoon sun felt soft and heavy on his back as he rested, and it wouldn't hurt to rest for just a minute. Sasuke stuck the shuriken into the ground where he could grab it in half a second, and closed his eyes.
If he didn't look at the blue-haired woman's yard, he could pretend he was behind his own house instead. On a day like this, his mother would open the window and offer him something to drink, or his father might suddenly appear and lecture him for stealing his shuriken. Maybe even Itachi would come out and sit beside him, and then pick up the shuriken and show Sasuke how to hold his wrist to make sure the weapon stayed level as it flew...
His legs were chilly. Sasuke blinked, reaching for the shuriken, and realized that the sun had moved and the tree's shadow had slid over half his body. He'd fallen asleep.
He was also incredibly hungry; he probably wouldn't be able to train until he ate something. Sasuke pushed himself upright, frowning as his sore body argued for more rest, and walked around the building to the front door. As he headed down the hallway toward the rear staircase, he heard voices behind the woman's office door. He slowed to listen.
"--done assassination before," the woman said.
"You get used to it," a strange man answered. "Location?"
"Sky Country." The woman sighed. "Itachi's throwing everything off schedule; I was supposed to have two more weeks off but here I am, running off in the middle of a business deal and leaving Sasuke alone when Sarutobi-sama specifically told me he shouldn't be alone right now. I will be so happy when that weasel dies."
"Well, that's what we're here for."
"That and distracting me from my job. Okay, you've notified me -- now shoo. I want to get some work done before I have to leave Yusuke in charge again."
There was a tiny pause, and then the man said, "He won't learn if you do everything for him. Sometimes students need room to fail. But maybe business is different from being shinobi."
Something rustled, and then Sasuke heard footsteps and the sound of a window slamming shut. He hurried toward the stairs, before the woman could open her door and realize that he'd been listening. He didn't want to look at her right now.
That woman was an assassin, and she was going to kill his broth-- kill that man.
Itachi needed to die! But Sasuke needed to kill him. If he didn't kill Itachi, then why was he still alive? If he didn't kill Itachi, then he might as well be dead like everyone else... and besides, Itachi wanted Sasuke to kill him. He'd said so -- he told Sasuke to hate him, and get strong.
Sasuke was so distracted that he didn't notice the stairwell door was open, which it shouldn't have been. He didn't hear the door close behind him with a muffled click. He didn't see the flash of orange in the muted electric light.
He did, however, notice when Naruto punched his gut and tried to put him in a headlock.
Thirty rather confused seconds later, Sasuke had Naruto pinned facedown on the floor with a shuriken against his throat. Naruto thrashed once, testing, and then went limp. "Bastard," he muttered.
"Moron," Sasuke said, pressing his knee into Naruto's back. "I'm not the one who attacked a better ninja for no reason."
"Hey! You're not better than me, and I did too have a reason -- I told you yesterday I was gonna kick your ass! And you were spying on Yukiko-neechan, so you totally deserved it." Naruto pinched Sasuke's ankle, distracting him for a bare second -- he jerked his head away from the shuriken -- and shoved upwards with his other hand, toppling Sasuke off his back. He scrambled to his feet, and Sasuke followed, cursing his still-weak knees. "So, so, what did you hear?"
Sasuke blinked. "...What?"
Naruto sniffed disdainfully and folded his arms, which was utterly stupid in the middle of a fight. "Hey, hey, and you say I'm a moron? You were listening to Yukiko-neechan, you went all pale like rotten milk, and you didn't even notice me waiting, so she had to be talking about something important, yeah? So what was it?"
"None of your business."
"Tell me, or I'll tell her you were spying. I'll say you tried to kill me -- my neck's bleeding, see, so she'll believe me! And what kind of bastard uses shuriken in a fight? That's cheating!"
Sasuke tried to fit everything he couldn't figure out how to say -- that they were ninja, that there was no such thing as a fair fight or cheating, that nobody in his right mind would ever believe an idiot like Naruto -- into his glare. Naruto didn't even notice.
"...She's going to kill my brother," Sasuke said, after a minute.
Naruto's blue eyes stretched wide in horror. "No way! Yukiko-neechan's too nice to do anything like that! Unless... hey, hey, is your brother evil? Is he the one who killed your family? It was your family that all got killed last week, right? If your brother did that, he's really evil -- you don't kill family!"
"He killed them," Sasuke said, "so I'm going to kill him."
"No, Yukiko-neechan's gonna kill him," Naruto corrected. "Besides, you suck as a ninja -- if he's good enough to kill all your family, then he'd kick your ass."
"If I suck, you suck more!"
Naruto growled, while Sasuke tried to figure out why he'd just said that. He wasn't supposed to get distracted by idiots -- he had to be calm and controlled, like Ita-- like a good ninja, if he wanted to catch up to that man. But... what was the point anymore?
"Hey, hey, I'm talking to you! Pay attention, bastard!" Naruto snapped his fingers in Sasuke's face, and Sasuke snarled at him. "Hey, I just thought of something. You want to kill your brother, right? And Yukiko-neechan's gonna 'sassinate him. So why don't we sneak along and help her?"
Sasuke sputtered for a moment, and then fell back on glaring. "Moron. If she's good enough to kill him, she'd catch me following. And you wouldn't be there."
Naruto grinned like a cat that had just scooped a decorative fish out of a koi pond and found a way to blame the mess on a nearby dog. "I would so -- I know how to make this work. See, see, I know how to play tricks on her, and I know how her missions work; she tells me all that stuff. She goes undercover with traders." He leaned in close and whispered into Sasuke's ear. "Tell me where she's going -- I can get us into the caravan and by the time anyone finds us, we'll be too far away for them to send us back."
Sasuke shoved the idiot away. But as he moved past Naruto, toward the stairs, he muttered, "Sky Country."
He could feel Naruto's grin itching on the back of his neck until he reached the landing and escaped.
---------------------------------------------
End of Chapter Four
Back to chapter 3
Continue to chapter 5
Read the clean version here on ff.net
---------------------------------------------
Iruka was supposed to appear in a final scene, but I had to move that for length and pacing reasons. I swear I will get him into this story somehow!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 12:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 03:10 am (UTC)Besides, "Guardian" is my 'try new literary techniques' story, among other things, so... :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 04:16 am (UTC)And Naga is so much love.(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 04:27 am (UTC)I read that scene, and I just ached at the lost opportunity. This story is, among (many!) other things, an attempt to fix that. (I more or less fixed Naruto's childhood in "Apartment Manager." "Guardian" should, to some extent, fix Sasuke. I've also tweaked Sakura's childhood a little, as a semi-logical consequence of changing Naruto. I hope I can make that clear in some throwaway comments -- there's already one when Naruto crashes in to tell Yukiko about the giant raven at the hospital, but it's a 'blink and you miss it' sort of thing. And tweaking Sakura's life naturally has knock-on effects on Ino, which I have decided has effects on Hinata, so... AUs are so much fun!)
*hugs Naga* I like it when people like my characters. You dress them up nicely and send them out into the world, and then you just have to cross your fingers and hope. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 04:34 am (UTC)A lot of people might harp on you for "fixing" the characters, saying that it takes away from their "character," but I don't think so. I think that Sasuke can still be Sasuke even though he loves and cares about other people and isn't completely focused on vengence.
Of course! The domino effect! Konoha Gakure no Sato isn't so big that changing a few little things won't effect everyone. Especially if one of those little things is Naruto XD ♥
I'm in the process of making my own Narutoverse characters at the moment and I must say I am daunted by yours! So many good, strong, believable characters to live up to!
I ran one of the teams through a Mary-Sue test thing-y and my favorite character got the lowest score ...XD(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 01:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 03:13 am (UTC)Anyway, Chibi!Naruto amuses me to no end. I always thought, judging by his behavior in the early manga chapters, that he must have been a holy terror when he was just a bit younger.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 02:53 am (UTC)But! But! NagaandKakashiandooooohsuchaninterestingpieceofbackstoryaboutninjavillagesandandand...
So, yeah. Safe to say I like it. ^_^
Ja, -n
(*goes back to indulging himself shamelessly with a Mai-HiME fic*)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 03:16 am (UTC)But! But! NagaandKakashiandooooohsuchaninterestingpieceofbackstoryaboutninjavillagesandandand...
I take it Eiji worked for you? And Kakashi's scene? The conversation with Kakashi was obviously the important part of Yukiko's POV section, but I didn't know how to properly gloss over the business meeting, and then the architect decided he needed a speaking role, and, well, I like dialogue, so... *sigh*
(*is waiting for more of your Naruto stories, you know*)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 04:59 am (UTC)*is badly shamed*
Yes, I know. And it's even worse because not only is it another bloody self-insert, but I haven't even had the decency to keep 'him' in the Supporting Lead role the way I did Neshan... harem, heroism, the whole nine yards - maybe one step away from your classic Mary Sue yarn... well, discounting the results of the fact that the source series has exactly four (two of whom are villains) out of eighteen or so main characters survive the entire run with sanity and heartbeat mostly intact.
OTOH, the fact that I'm writing it by trading scenes with another guy who's doing his own story has let me churn out two chapters in as many weeks, so it's not all bad...
Anyway, though that's been sucking up most of my attention, I have been poking the next chapter of TGNH with a stick during the quieter moments in class, so it's not holding completely still... Blind guess? End of next month, maybe. Possibly.
So, yeah. Don't worry about the extra dialog for Yukiko... I think that the way we get to follow her around and see her in the context of her own life is a large part of what makes her such an effective character. It goes well with how well all the other parts worked together.
Ja, -n
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 03:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 04:19 am (UTC)I like Naga and I like Taizen, and the way they rub against each other's sharp edges amuses me. Besides, I've had that argument with my mother, allowing for cultural differences. I think most daughters probably have. :-)
Aw
Date: 2006-02-27 11:32 am (UTC)Re: Aw
Date: 2006-02-27 08:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 06:41 pm (UTC)Naruto and Sasuke are 8 at this point right, because if I have my dates right, Orochimaru left the Akatsuki about 3 years before.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 08:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 08:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 02:43 am (UTC)Eight years before the end of the timeskip (which, unless I'm seriously losing my memory, is the first time we see Deidara) makes Sasuke and Naruto 8 years old. I am, of course, assuming they aged from 12 to 13 between their graduation and Sasuke's departure/betrayal, which would make them 16 after the timeskip. If Kishimoto wants to contradict that, I will file him in with J. K. Rowling under 'people who can't do math.'
Orochimaru could have left Akatsuki fairly soon after Itachi joined, and yet still have met and known him... and both events could take place 'eight years ago.' A year is a long time, after all!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 03:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 04:57 am (UTC)1. I can write this off as an AU difference. I don't like that, since there's no logical reason for it.
2. I can say that pretend that Akatsuki has been concealing his departure from their organization for whatever reason.
3. I can say that they're counting one or more of their hangers-on (like that Tobi person) as a de facto member of the group when discussing their strength with outsiders, though the hangers-on are not 'official' members.
I have no opinion myself, and Orochimaru will not (I hope) appear on-page in this story, so please feel free to pick whichever explanation works best for you.
Cheers,
Liz
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-02 03:35 am (UTC)Naruto bounced
I like how that point came up first; it is surely a sign of evil! XD
Yay, Guardian! ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-02 04:30 am (UTC)