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The Sooner It Will	By : ladywinterfic Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Kakashi/Naruto Views: 5960 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and am not making any money.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
The Sooner It Will
Act 1-5: You made your bed, now lie in it
.o0o.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any way, shape, or form.
WARNING: KakaNaru, ie. YAOI, ie. Male/Male. Also, Naruto is 10 years old. Also implied past rape. DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT LIKE. There will be a lot of violence in this chapter.
AN: This chapter refers to some ANBU introduced in the first part of the last chapter. Not really any explicit sex.
Thanks to Vanillasauce, Sony Boy, Nightmaric, and grey-shadow-horse for giving me prompts that helped out with this chapter, and Wingwyrm and Jormun for audiencing! =D
.o0o.
...previously...
"Then maybe this will be enough for you, my student," Hiruzen replied, and stepped forward, as Orochimaru tore apart into chakra and the seal snapped in, a sharp tug against his stomach and a lurch against his soul.
[...]
"[Uwan] was shaky at first, after coming back from his mission."
"At first? I assume he is better now?" Sarutobi let the worry into his voice. Hibagon, now long in having concern and affection for the boy, would appreciate knowing his Hokage held a similar regard. "Can he safely participate in this attack?"
"Absolutely. Once in awhile, you can still catch him looking a bit solemn, if he thinks you're not paying attention. But he's back to fighting form and even more slippery."
"Excellent."
"I'm surprised how much a day's break helped him to be honest."
.o0o.
Uwan hears the far-off explosions of his platoon and envies their strength. He envies how solid the other ANBU seem, because he doesn't feel very collected right now.
He looks at the body he'd just beheaded, and cleans his blade on the grass.
Was he supposed to be this vindicated? And yet feel so sick?
Is it normal to still feel so angry?
"Hey, you okay?" Hibagon approaches him slowly, for a shinobi, making sound as he arrives and not hiding in the shadows of the nearby rocks. They're on the far side of the base from Konoha; the muddy, flowing areas of wild rice growing tall, anywhere from waist-height to head-height on a normal man. That is to say, Naruto's almost completely hidden by them, and had already taken down four nin by himself (granted they were mostly genin) and a couple more with his team.
"...maybe."
His first kill had been training and reflex, his second to cover Houkou, their tracker, the third and fourth, because. Because they'd needed someone to engage the fourth person in the enemy platoon. Because Naruto could.
Naruto feels, he feels possibly queasy, he feels vaguely proud, he feels.
He doesn't feel enough, he realizes, he doesn't feel it enough.
The deaths weren't like he expected them to be, he expected it to help and to make him feel more powerful but it only made him feel like something was missing, that there could have been something more. Does that make him a weak shinobi? Or does that make him strong, to only want to-- to need more? He isn't even sure what he needed, to regret less or to kill again or to be more angry or to be less sorry. Is he supposed to feel this sorry?
Hibagon looks at him steadily as he quickly tilts his mask away from his face and throws up neatly, far enough from the body. He lips away the excess and spits to clean his mouth, then shifts his mask back into place.
Hibagon claps a heavy hand on his shoulder. His sensei feels of approval.
"You covered our six; he would've slipped away or attacked us. Or gotten Houkou killed, like that other guy tried to do. Which he didn't," and his sensei's hand squeezes gently, "Because you stopped him."
Hibagon peers down into the eyeholes of Uwan's mask.
"It's okay," his sensei says, managing somehow to encompass everything, and his hand encourages, Just accept it.
Naruto doesn't quite believe him and doesn't quite have the words right then to be able to explain why. He's trained for this, been trained to kill and to understand people and their reactions, and he knows that he was simply doing his duty and supporting his team.
But he feels like--
As Uwan, he thinks, it's unprofessional, this isn't the time.
The day is not quite over yet.
The area's not secure.
(It's not safe, Naruto thinks.)
.o0o.
Ookami glided through the passageways, the warren of holes and halls that made up Yatomaru's compound. The Hokage had already left for Konoha. Earlier, he'd finished sealing the body of the Snake Sennin's guard he'd taken on into a scroll and aided another's battle with theirs. By the time they'd finished, all the other guards had been killed or subdued, so the wolf-masked ANBU had dropped off his kill and had headed towards the base to help out in the underground maze with his tracking skills.
There was faint noise up ahead and to the left, strange smells and odd currents in the chakra signatures of the ANBU there and Ookami slipped over to see if they needed assistance.
What he saw when he entered the room whited out his mind with rage.
"...why haven't you let them out yet?"
Zou shifted uneasily. Ikiryou simply pointed at the seals on the bars, "It's beyond us. I sent a summon to Jiraiya-sama."
Ookami approached the cages slowly and peered at the marks. Containment seals interleaved with explosive ones. He has to admit that the seal-work was almost beyond him as well, and he would start unravelling it had it not required focus that he did not currently have. A confused whimper came from the far corner.
"These are not the shinobi children kidnapped from Konoha." Ookami stated, trying to find calm.
"No."
From the way that Zou was twitching and not looking, the wolf-masked ANBU guessed that he was almost forcibly not thinking of anything. He could sympathize. Ookami glanced at Ikiryou and knew that Naruto's stealth teacher understood what they were seeing:
A handful of pens, in a badly lit room, with frightened pale-eyed children inside.
They were all beautiful.
"Alright my chickadees! What is this sealwork that you needed the Great Master Jiraiya to... look... at." The Toad-Sage let his voice trail off and a frown grew deep and long on his face.
Though he has no confirmation of Jiraiya's role in Uwan's life, he could make some guesses based on the flickers of thoughts in those eyes that mirrored the darkness of his own.
There was a heavy silence, that wasn't broken until the seal-master moved forward to begin work on the cages.
Their radios crackled to life.
"We need all available trackers, Kawa's slipped away and is heading north northwest, last known position is 103', 32'."
Ikiryou was raising his hand to his headset but the wolf-ANBU was faster.
"Ookami. I'm on it." He glanced at the other man, and lifted his finger from the comm button, "I wasn't aware you were a tracker." The slight tilt of the Toad-Sage's head told Ookami that he was listening, but he didn't know if the other assassin knew the Sanin enough to know that as well. Though he's pretty sure that Ikiryou wasn't aware of his... involvement with Uwan's mission.
Ikiryou shrugged, and settled back, "He needs to die." It went unsaid that power, rather than stealth, would serve them best with that task. What went even more unsaid underneath that, was that the other assassin would yet still have preferred to make the kill, and didn't think Ookami would do it properly. Aa, that confirms it.
"I understand." Ookami was already leaving.
"Do you?" The soft-spoken question lingered, and tried to chase him down the hall.
More than you know, he just mentally replied.
.o0o.
Yatomaru did not even deserve to have the Chidori wasted on him, Ookami thought, as the wolf-masked ANBU stalked him through the grass and the small lakes that dotted Rice Country.
He idly dodged explosions from time-delayed seals and hunted the willowy jounin; it was fairly easy following the blood-scent, cuts littered the other man, deep flesh wounds where sometimes the white of bone flashed. The jounin might've been a bit difficult had Ookami not possessed an eye that saw through genjutsu and a seal-master for a teacher and a teacher's teacher. Also most sealing arts were not suited to the pace of battle, it took a true genius like Minato-sensei to adapt it to the field. And Yatomaru, while very gifted, was not a genius.
As it was, Ookami felt he could take his time and darted forward with a slice, and the bicep was neatly shaved off the man's right arm; he made sure to leave it connected by a strip, so that it flapped in the wind with a spray of red and messed up Yatomaru's balance.
"Isn't it wrong to play with your food, Wolf-san?" the pedophile asked, with a geisha's smile, eyes wincing with pain but tilted in a leer.
He was right, annoyingly enough, and the ANBU attempted to pull a tight rein back on himself. But let rip his katana through that narrow torso in a last diagonal slash, bones screeching and gaping out in shattered bits, whipping the body around, and he bore Yatomaru into the dirt as the other man bled out. The Copy Nin kneeled on his back and kept a hand, hard, pressed against the pedophile's head, the silky, fine platinum hair making it difficult to keep a steady grip.
The absurdly pretty man laughed around the blood in his mouth. "So vicious!"
The wolf-masked ANBU ground his face into the dirt.
"It's fine, I'd be dead by now anyways," Yatomaru gasped out, "We had an agreement, Orochimaru and I, and my part was that I gave him my body." He gave a slow lecherous writhe, not even trying to escape, spilling more of his blood and innards out.
Ookami, riding the motion, felt ill.
"And he let me have pretty things to play with. I didn't let myself before, you know." There was a knowing smile in the pedophile's voice as he asked, "Did I take something pretty from you?"
Ookami flung the man away from him, against a rock outcropping, hoping a concussion would shut him up.
Yatomaru only coughed and stared back with pale blue-grey eyes, darkened with pain, but triumphant, "People are only this angry when they care. Was it a sibling perhaps? A niece? A son?"
Ookami tensed and was still attempting to process the bitter viciousness in that statement when the other man grinned suddenly and asked--
"Did you want him for yourself?"
The kunai landed with a solid thunk in the man's skull, a smile still lingering on the blond's face.
It was singularly unsatisfying.
.o0o.
The hand lands on Uwan's arm mid-swing, possible because the other boy's natural reach is much longer, and stops him from finishing the slice across the genin's neck.
The feel of the grip startles Naruto enough to make him look at the other kid's face.
It makes him remember how he was quiet when he was little, because he changed caretakers less when he was quiet and it made them less angry, and how he became more and more silent and shadow-like until it seemed like he wasn't seen for days at a time. But when they happened to remember him they hated him again, and eventually he'd thought that if he was still going to be hated even when he was invisible, then he'd rather not be. He was going to be what he wanted to be, and Naruto wanted to be loud. And he was not gonna take it back. He knew that there would be consequences and he would swallow them, because the price of doing anything else was too high.
He was not going to take himself back, like he was a misspoken word.
That feeling, of not taking any of it back, that was in the mousy-haired boy. Of being stubborn because something made him be stubborn.
And Uwan realizes then that the other boy isn't moving much either. The genin just looks into the eyeholes of his mask like he's studying him right back.
It-it's the genin that Yatomaru assigned to execute me, Uwan thinks.
"Ah," there is recognition in the other boy's dark eyes as they peer at his own distinctive blue ones, "is that how it is?"
Uwan has no words. He scrambles for a reply but the genin interrupts him.
"I'm still not going to hold back."
And this somehow makes Uwan feel just a bit relieved, and he twists out of the hold and reengages.
The genin is older and taller and stronger and in a fair situation would have beaten him. But Uwan had fought on this piece of land before, and some of his traps are still set, and other boy believed him when he ran away or tripped. Its simple to then lead him into a trap that tangles up all the dark-eyed boy's limbs in reinforced rope.
Uwan watches the other boy's face as he slides the wakizashi into his heart, and his face was defiant, but resigned and regretful too. The mousy-haired boy accepts the blade like it was his own choice, despite being tied up, despite having fought to live, as the culmination of all his choices.
Watching him feels like he's watching himself die.
Its his ninth kill.
.o0o.
"...I gotta admit I'm impressed. Didn't expect much out of the runt to be honest, but he's saved my ass at least once and watching him take out this one chunin," Houkou broke off and chuckled, "Let me tell you, it wasn't graceful or anything, looked more awkward than anything else, but it was very well done. He was setting up traps in this running battle, then engaged using some basic stances and tricked the guy into overextending, and when he did, levered him into the trigger for a bunch of exploding notes," Houkou gestured broadly to illustrate his words. "Damn professional too; sliced off the head, to confirm the kill."
"And he's still in the Academy?" Akashita asked in disbelief, looking at Houkou, who shrugged in a way that said 'I thought he was', and turned to Hibagon.
Most of the fighting was over, all the genin and chunin were accounted for with only two tracking teams still hunting down their jounin-level strays. The ANBU teams were setting up a wide secured perimeter to settle down for the night, with a member from each platoon gathering at the base to drop off their team's seal scrolls with the bodies of dead nin. Ookami was wondering why Hibagon's team sent two members when he glanced at the impressive pile they were dropping off and raised an eyebrow. There were actually enough to be unwieldy for only one set of arms, if one expected that shinobi to be battle-ready.
"Yeah," Hibagon answered, nodding. "Half-undercover, granted, and details classified. But he still needs to work on his basic combat skills so you can count him as an Academy student."
"Damn. Must've had a great teacher then, to bring him that much up to speed and able to go toe-to-toe with a chunin," said Akashita.
"It tickles my nuts that you think that, it really does," Hibagon laughed and the room boomed with it, then he waved off their miffed stances. "I taught him kenjutsu but the tactics and the traps are all him."
"You taught him?" Houkou leaned forward.
"Only kenjutsu, a bit of taijutsu," a brief hint of consternation flickered across large shoulders. "He's not staying with the sword-work in the long run, took it up purely for ANBU, but he's still pretty good." Pause. "But don't tell him that."
"Big ego?"
"You have no idea."
Ookami slipped Yatomaru's scroll into the pile and left the room. The others didn't notice.
From the way that they were talking, the kid sounds like he pulled his own weight in the fighting if not more. Which meant a very high kill count, if he was responsible for even a fourth of the scrolls that they had brought. And it would be the first time Uwan's killed. Ookami tried not to think of young Uchiha Itachi's face during the Wars, how it gradually lost all expression, failed, and made a mental note to check up on the boy after his duties were over.
.o0o.
There were signs of battle on the land, pockmarks and burns, but by the end of the rainy season they should all be washed away. They were almost done, the captives were en-route back to Konoha, as well as the retrieved children.
Ookami had just given the go-ahead to Basan and Akashita to raze the hideout and collapse all underground spaces larger than a body a hundred yards in every direction, and he wasn't involved in the planning of how they were to handle Orochimaru's other base with the updated information they've gotten. Most of the able-bodied ANBU will head over to the other site in the morning; with luck it should all be wrapped up in a day or two.
Ookami knew that Hibagon's platoon would not be counted among those leaving for the other base; a full team was to be sent back with the sensitive pack of the numerous seal scrolls containing the bodies, and it was no accident that the Sandaime chose the team that Uwan was on. He should find the blond now, before he needed to leave in the morning and while the evening was still fresh, and he sent chakra to his nose to seek out the smell of sunshine, wind, and boy.
He found Uwan by one of the many shallow lakes that dot Rice Country, trying to clean the blood off his mask and his gear, and observed for awhile. He saw Hibagon approach the boy and ask him something, but by the time that Ookami had turned up his hearing, the boy had already smiled and shooed his teacher away.
He was hesitant to approach the boy himself, and remembered the last time they'd talked, sitting in the moonlight looking down at blue eyes that seemed to glow, the sheets rumpled in a nest, the air still scented heavily of them and of sex. It was easier that time, ah, rising to the occasion, small eager sounds and small knowing hands and small smile full of sin. Down that path lay insanity, he knew. This cannot happen again, he had thought. It was starting to feel too familiar, too comfortable, too easy.
"Please don't ask me again." Kakashi had requested, hand stroking through blond hair. He repeated himself, quietly, gave a final pat, and lifted away, rising from the bed. "I'll still...be around. I should get to know my sensei's son. And I shouldn't--" he'd breathed, tried again.
"Don't ask me to touch you again," he'd whispered.
"Okay," the boy had finally said.
The wolf-masked ANBU watched as the blond turns back to the water, alone, and as the smile slides off his face. That is wrong, he thinks, and eventually lets himself move when the view doesn't change. He steps away from his cover, but not any closer, and Naruto looks up and blinks at him.
"Yo." He raises a hand in greeting.
The boy just nods and resumes scrubbing, in a very focused way.
Ookami steps forward a little, takes off his ANBU mask, and watches, tilting his head to try and catch those eyes.
"I'm glad you're alive," Kakashi tells him after a bit. "You're glad too, ne?"
Naruto nods, shakily. He still doesn't stop.
"They were going to kill you, right? Or kill other Konoha nin? You shouldn't regret protecting yourself and your team."
"Yeah," Naruto sighs, and starts to dry his gear. They were very clean. "But. I get the feeling that there should be another way. Instead of killing."
"Another way?" Kakashi wants to rub at the boy's frown, to run his hand through the blond hair to maybe draw out a smile, but they're still among the wreckage of battle in the flat fields of wild rice and there's no privacy whatsoever. And he shouldn't. And he shouldn't. "Even these, these people that willingly worked for Yatomaru?"
Kakashi finds himself placing his hand on the blond's head, and while it startles him that he'd gotten so close despite himself, it seems to untense a measure of stress and guilt in the kid even as he rises quickly and shrugs off the hand.
"You don't know that it willing." Naruto shot back, though his eyes were still looking down and shadowed by his hair; still shuddery, and shoulders small. "And there are many kinds of 'willing'. I'd met-- killed-- the genin that Kawa ordered to execute me. The kid was angry, I think, and scared. And it made him want to be scary. There has to be some way to just-- to just talk to them..." his voice trails away, pleading, almost completely defeated. Like he knows what he's asking for is the complete antithesis of their very existence.
But Naruto is not supposed to sound defeated. He's not supposed to look that brittle. He wasn't even that broken after--
The world feels like it's roaring.
Kakashi sends chakra to his nose and ears, casts his senses around, and finding no one close--
He sinks into a kneel.
He places his hands around Naruto's face and looks at him carefully and makes sure that he listens.
"You are talking about an impossible thing." He says this firmly, and somewhat hard. The blond tries to jerk his head away, but Kakashi holds him steady, "Impossible, but you are Konoha's number one most surprising nin."
Naruto looks back at him then, eyes finally meeting his, uncertain.
"You do," and here Kakashi breathes, deep and shaking, feeling his resolve breaking with each word, "these impossible. things."
Kakashi watches himself swaying closer. (He's ten, some part of him shrieks. I don't care, another part replies.)
"If anyone can do it, then it is you."
Naruto blinks his eyes rapidly and they shine, a bit watery. Kakashi cannot believe he's doing this, but he pulls his mask to his chin and wraps the blond into a hug and a careful kiss. The boy collapses against him like he's too tired to hold himself up.
Kakashi keeps his guard up and his ears open as he tips them into the cover of the tall wild rice, as he strokes those shivery shoulders calm and presses kisses against eyes and cheeks and mouth.
Kakashi promises himself to worry about this later. Sometime when Naruto doesn't look like he's about to fall apart.
.o0o.
"I'm going to have to become Hokage." The blond says, eventually, forehead pressed against his own, the grasses high above them, pierced by birdsong and wind, "To get to all the people I'd need to reach. And to be strong enough for people to listen, and acknowledge what I'm saying." There is steel being forged in those eyes even as he speaks.
Kakashi didn't expect this, being a Kage is frankly a shitty job, but he's starting to get used to the feeling of being surprised. Perhaps eventually he wouldn't be surprised by Naruto anymore, but he finds himself not looking forward to the prospect. He also finds himself not really believing it could happen.
He wonders, looking into that depthless blue, if this was what Minato-sensei looked like when he'd decided to go after the Kage seat. If his eyes looked the same. He wonders, because around girls his sensei was a bit of a dork, if that look was what finally pushed Kushina-senpai into his bed.
"I'm going to be Hokage." This time its spoken like it was already fact, and with fire and force.
And its then that Kakashi realizes that Naruto isn't like his father at all, the blond may have his father's hair and jawline and share the color of his eyes, but where Minato was like the ocean, ripples and waves on the surface but power pushed deep and away, Naruto is like the storm. Is like being in a pot of boiling water. Is like being thrown about and being touched from all angles.
Because Kakashi finds himself looking at his armful of boy, at tanned skin and pretty eyes and sunlit hair, and finds himself thinking not only that he is beautiful, which is only the truth, but that Naruto is remarkable and wonderful and hot.
I'm so fucked. Kakashi thinks, wide-eyed.
They'd spent maybe fifteen minutes just curled up in the grasses, and he finds that he's willing to spend an hour more. He finds himself wanting to see that face bright with smiles, perhaps a sated one like he'd been granted when Kakashi had slept with the boy last time, and he wants to see him like that again. Wants to make the the boy giggle and grin and moan under his fingers, wants to make his face twist up in pleasure and shatter with it, wants to taste his smile (wants to taste him-- shameless writhing and beautiful impossible tightness, eyes half-lidded and *needing* him), he wants-- He's going to take a bunch of missions, he thinks, deeply disgusted at himself. He's going to get back to Konoha, turn in his mask, and immediately take whatever S or A rank they have on hand.
Maybe a long one.
"Mmm, I should go help set up camp." Naruto murmurs thoughtfully, glancing at the sky, eyes still distant with plans and determination. The boy leans in and kisses him gently on the lips. They tingle, a tug down his spine. Like when the kid first nipped at them, over a month ago. The thought shatters his mind further and Yatomaru's words ring in his ear.
"Maa, I'm... going to stay here for a bit," he flops onto his back and stares up at the appearing stars, which seems to wobble with laughter at him.
Uwan nods absently, puts on his gear, and leaves, waving. Kakashi finds himself watching the blond as he goes.
I'm so, *so* fucked, he thinks.
.o0o.
The wolf-faced ceramic mask clacked onto the desk.
Finally, Sarutobi did not say.
Hiruzen wondered what it would have been like had he'd kicked Kakashi out of ANBU forcibly, and can't help but think a lot of not-very-well-hidden sulking would be involved. Probably with an upswing of insolence and the Copy Nin's infamous tardiness, and possibly making him completely intractable to even a hint of being groomed for office.
"There's one thing I have to ask though." He had paused almost at the door and turned back around, looking tired.
Hiruzen tilted his head at Kakashi to go on.
"Why didn't you ever tell me of him? Why was," the young man coughed, shifted, "why was this how I met him?"
The Sandaime measured the shinobi with his eyes, "Had you known Minato had a son after the Nine Tails, what would you have done?"
"Taken him in maybe, watched over him at least."
"And what would it have looked like to Iwa, to have the student of the Yellow Flash hovering over a blond-haired baby?"
Iwa and Konoha at the time had both been vying over being the strongest of the hidden villages, Konoha by skill and Iwa by strength in numbers. But Namikaze Minato had personally decimated over half their number at a handful of key battles, and now even ten years later Kumo still held the record among the villages for highest military strength. Not a single Iwa family escaped the Yellow Flash whole. So to say that Iwa hated the Namikaze was to compare being scalded to being thrown into the sun.
"...Aa."
"Exactly."
As the young man left, Orochimaru sidles forward in Sarutobi's mind.
Minato's son? Really?
The Sandaime stares at the mask on his desk, and thought of the original decision he'd made to go through with the tentative plans that Hibagon and Ikiryou brought forth.
Earlier, he'd ordered Ikiryou to figure out someway, any possible way, to be absolutely certain of his information; matters in Konoha were too unstabilized for the Hokage himself to go rushing on a fool's errand, and there was no one else who could survive Orochimaru long enough for his capture. Ikiryou had requested Hibagon's tactical assistance and even then it took them a week.
They were that day both very pale, when they produced what they'd come up with.
That's who you used? The son of the one whom you'd chosen over me to be your successor, you used *him* to crack open my next vessel's bedroom office?
Hiruzen remembered talking to Uwan, to Naruto, offering the boy multiple chances to back out. But he didn't. He just looked at what was at stake and asked for more mission details.
He reminded Sarutobi of his father.
Oh that's priceless, honestly. I didn't know you had it in you.
Jiraiya slipped in from the shadows, his entire torso bandaged, looking at Ookami's mask on his desk.
"You asked Kakashi to--"
"Naruto asked for the person I trusted most," the Sandaime interrupted.
"But you asked Kakashi."
He nodded.
"You haven't wanted Kakashi in ANBU for a long time." Jiraiya eyeballed him, "Also now you can circulate Uwan in the Black Ops." Because the Copy Nin would have raised at least some noise about his sensei's son being in the ANBU so young, if he'd found out about Naruto's existence another way, and even a little noise would flare across the rumor mills due to it's nature. And that would let people know of Uwan's identity and ruin his chances for being acknowledged first by his skill, which was one of the boy's greatest wishes.
Hiruzen simply brought out his pipe and concentrated on lighting it. Jiraiya's face was set like when he'd watched Tsunade whenever she was playing a very dangerous game; knowing she would lose and he'd have to help her run.
"It was a gamble."
"Very much so."
"All these schemes," The Toad Sage huffed, "...this is why he was your favorite student, isn't it?"
Orochimaru is very much amused.
.o0o.
Jiraiya had left already, saying that someone's come forth about a group of missing-nin the Snake Sennin had been a part of, and he'd wanted to follow up on the information. Nothing Sarutobi said shook his student's faith in how important it was to leave Konoha to find out more, so the Sandaime simply sent him off at the gates with his silver-haired guide.
Sarutobi stared at the mission scrolls thoughtfully on his desk, and called in his seduction experts. Like most of those involved in infiltration they worked and trained with their masks off, so whenever they were forced by protocol to don full ANBU uniform there was a sense of unease and great forbearance.
"You may take the masks off for this debriefing," the Hokage said, he'd wanted them to be comfortable and at ease for what he'd planned.
They did so with an almost inaudible sigh of relief.
"I apologize for not getting to this earlier, but there had been pressing matters to attend to," he said, professional with a hint of warmth.
"It's fine Hokage-sama," Yobuko insisted.
"Well then," the Sandaime shuffled some papers around. "I've heard that you didn't have to cover much, with Uwan."
"Well, we could barely fit a word in edgewise, the kid came in with a load of questions," said Yobuko.
"Heh, figures that the demon would be experienced," Buta muttered.
And Yobuko giggled, hand against her lips.
"Uwan is not the Nine Tails." Sarutobi snapped, angry. "Should I be concerned that my experts on people have lost their touch?"
Those meant for Infiltration needed to understand other human minds well, to blend in safely and consistently and to know how to escape notice, even when under suspicion and questioned. Mujina had adored the boy within the first day; but had simply not informed Naruto of the extent of it until about a year and a half later, after she'd 'graduated' him, due to the fact that she understood the boy worked best under pressure and glowed with the smallest bit of approval. Uwan had needed to get up to speed quickly, for the excuse of being in ANBU to hold up under Danzo's scrutiny. And it worked so well that he had his first short supervised infiltration mission within five months of induction and was good enough to start soloing a year after that.
That these supposed experts were so caught up in the village's unreasoned hate that they'd ignored the signs that their training should have allowed them to see was alarming.
"Perhaps you should be reminded of what real monsters look like." The Sandaime tossed them the mission scrolls he'd prepared, and the tone of his voice didn't make the mission an option. There was a circle of slave traffickers working their way up the north-eastern coast and both the he and the Daimyo wanted to keep an eye on them.
"Dismissed."
They left, surprise still in their postures.
.o0o.
"Jii-san, you better get ready! I'm going to be Hokage!" A blond blur burst into the office, and the stationed ANBU shifted in question, but he signaled them to stand down and to leave. They'd never met Naruto before and Sarutobi would prefer that Uwan's reputation proceeded the boy before the knowledge that he was the Jinchuuriki.
"The Hokage?" asked Hiruzen, amused.
"Yeah! I'm gonna steal your hat and be much more awesome in it." The boy crossed his arms and said firmly, "I've decided."
"Thank you for letting me know," he said wryly.
"No problem! That's why I dropped by." Uwan had already debriefed so this was pretty much a social visit. It was the middle of the afternoon and Hiruzen was due for a break anyways so he pulled out his thermos of tea.
"You're looking better." Naruto's eyes looked happy and full of life and the Will of Fire.
"Eeeh?"
"Compared to after you came back from the infiltration." In fact, far more lively than he'd expected the boy to look after being blooded. Sarutobi had offered a role in the invasion, thinking that it may give Naruto some closure, and the speed at which the blond had agreed left him no future option of being able to take it back without feeling guilty.
He'd encouraged Uwan's team to be top-heavy, with two elite combat specialists and ANBU's best tracker, to protect and support him. However that platoon's high level of competence meant that they were stationed on the side of the base facing inner Rice Country, instead of the side facing Fire Country, and thus the most probable path of escape. From Team Hibagon's debriefing he knew for certain that they'd faced more combat than the rest of the perimeter guards. And got the impression that the others kept forgetting how old Uwan was, and his actual level of experience, because he matched their competence so well.
Sarutobi brought up his concerns about how Naruto was handling his kills to Jiraiya, after his student came back from the battle at the second site, but the Toad Sage just waved him off.
I saw him before he'd left for Konoha, his student had said, he looked like he was doing fine. Without me, was implied.
"Ah, well, Kakashi stopping by helped." The boy chirruped, wry, "Thanks for giving him my address by the way."
"How did you know?" the Sandaime started. He was fairly sure he hadn't mentioned it earlier.
"You just told me."
The Professor felt chagrined.
"Hey hey, where is he anyways? Apparently no one's seen him around."
For some reason this makes Orochimaru peer in and pay attention.
"Who've you been asking?" It would be more than strange for the boy to go around asking after an older nin who'd he have no plausible reason for knowing.
"Nah, just overhearing stuff."
This made Sarutobi mentally sigh in relief. But the snake sennin is still avidly paying attention, and Hiruzen thought he felt amused.
"He's left ANBU," he added, for Naruto's benefit.
"Huh?"
"The attack on the base was Kakashi's last ANBU mission. He's a regular jounin now."
"Oh, so he's probably on a mission." Jounin missions came faster than ANBU ones, as a quarter of the Hokage's personal forces were almost always reserved, on standby. The siege on Orochimaru's bases was a major exception, and it was fortunate that the plans went off mostly without problems as Konoha had been gutted of its reserve of special ops for about two weeks. "That's fine then, I'll catch him after."
The Sandaime nodded. Mentally paused at his student's disquieting chuckles.
"Er, Naruto?" He has a thought, looking at the boy bouncing on his heels, and Hiruzen was not sure whether he was reading too much into things but it never hurt to ask.
"Yeah Jii-san?"
"What exactly do you need to find Kakashi for?" Orochimaru makes a amused snort, gives the impression of leaning in, and recommends putting down his cup. Sarutobi did so, despite thinking it unnecessary.
"Well, I like him and I wanna talk to him."
"You like him?" His student is already laughing.
Naruto nodded.
"As in," the Professor coughed, squirming, "As in, like like him?"
"No! I mean, yeah I like spending time with him and he's funny and it's really awesome having sex with him and... Oh." He paused and frowned at the floor, "Hmm. I think I... just might." Naruto made a thoughtful face. "Would that make him my boyfriend?"
Hiruzen was glad he set down his tea.
"I think you'd need the other party to agree to something like that." He said faintly.
"Oh that'll be easy!" Naruto grinned.
Sarutobi desperately tried to think of a way to convince the boy otherwise. But the slowly growing determination and the deepening glee on that face already let him know it was a failed proposition.
What have I done? The Sandaime thought, wide-eyed.
Orochimaru laughs and laughs.
.o0o.
...end chapter 5...
.o0o.
AN: Liked this chapter? If it made you smile at all please let me know, 'cause reviews make me smile!
Also they help me write. They honestly do.
Questions I have: was anything unclear? what was confusing? I've been doing a trick with the grammar, in that Naruto's always present tense, as is Orochimaru, Kakashi's past tense until driven into it, and Sarutobi's always past tense (or even past perfect). But does it make things odd? Can you feel the difference between the point of views?
Please help me catch any mistakes!
Houkou - a dog-like tree spirit from China.
Zou - elephant. There's an elephant in the room! Get it? Get it?? XD
Akashita - a creature that looms in a black cloud over a floodgate.
Basan - a large fire-breathing chicken monster.
Yobuko - Mountain dwelling spirit
Buta - pig
Platoon - It's frequently been used in Naruto canon to refer to a 4-man team.
However, "A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers. A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer." Or so wikipedia tells me.
Which leads me to think that perhaps it's a representation of military strength/power, and not necessarily numbers, thus the power level of nin versus specially trained samurai or regularly conscripted army. To be specific, in this fic, 1 average nin can simultaneously handle roughly 4 samurai or about 12 common soldiers.
Uwan's combat level - His raw combat skills average around around mid-genin, low genin if you're talking taijutsu, and low/mid chunin kenjutsu, non-existent attack ninjutsu, but highly refined henge and body-switch (but non-existent bushin). His support skills are jounin level, ie. traps, escape, evasion, stealth, infiltration.
If he currently fights using 'power' style he can only fight at about Academy level, maybe. If he fights dirty/evasively he can take on most low to mid chunin, unless the chunin has solid upper chunin combat skills and can analyze him well enough to know that they should press the attack.
Also, as stated in prior chapters, if Naruto's moving quickly (ie. in the middle of battle) the Kakuremino can only maybe 100% fool a genin that doesn't have the Byakugan, and it's a iffy thing against a chunin or better which makes it unreliable in battle. And if something's unreliable in battle it gets you killed or it gets information into the hands of people whom you really don't want knowing what you can do.
And remember that I love unreliable POV. Any particular person's thoughts or statements on ANYTHING, which includes how good Naruto can fight, may or may not be true. In this particular chapter alone, I've established that Hibagon was lying to Naruto about his skill level and Mujina about how much she likes him. But then, even Naruto's teachers doesn't even know what he's capable yet; and you know, Naruto likes to brag, even to himself.
ANBU Worldbuilding - numbers breakdown of ANBU subdivisions:
torture & interrogation : 6 (intel related, home-based)
infiltration : 12 (intel related, field-based)
assassination : 13 (usually 1v1 battles if against enemy nin)
combat & tactics : 35 (usually team battles, guard duties, siege work)
These are rough main categories, and denote specializations. Seduction experts are catagorized under Infiltration. Uwan is in Infiltration, Ikiryou and Ookami are in Assassination, but Ookami works frequently with Combat & Tactics because he's just that good, and functions more like a wrecking ball anyways, and Ikiryou does every once in a blue moon because his stealth-work brings back intel. Pretty much everyone was brought in (for once) on the attack on proto-Sound, excluding those 8 who were on long-term assignments like Mujina and Ibiki.
56 ANBU (14 platoons) were involved in the attack, there were 4 fatalities (2 due to Orochimaru from ch4) and 3 injuries that removed the nin from combat, 2 of which were permanent, for a total of 7 casualties. A "casualty" is someone unable to fight, and includes both death and injuries. 2 elite platoons went up against Orochimaru's guards (which included Ookami), while 2 platoons used siege tactics on the base and 2 platoons snuck in to wreck havoc from the inside (one of which had Ikiryou). The final 8 teams have one tracker each, and set up a double perimeter to catch fleeing nin, staggered like a compass star.
There were 85 Sound nin, and Uwan's team were responsible for bringing down 28 of them. Uwan had a higher individual body count than his teammates due to the fact that he was picking off the genin and chunin while they were handling jounin.
For the purposes of this fic, simple information gathering with that brain-thingy during the Pein arc is semi-civilian work (ie. failed Academy students/genin who knows chakra manipulation). Torture and interrogation (ie. advanced psychological techniques) and spy-work, however, is solely the purview of the state.
Pavlov - is a funny thing ne? But aside from Pavlov, the brain releases 'attachment' chemicals during sex; it's not mind control, but one's more inclined to be attached/care for/attracted to in the future with the one you've just had sex with, more so if you keep having sex with them, plus or minus one's actual previous attachment 'cause the human brain likes it's habits and patterns. Also, biological imperative, sort of like hard wiring to encourage family units.
Incidentally, there is some basis for rival!sex/hate!sex turning into something else via this method; granted, in practice, its usually more of a tweak to a person's preferences/wants than changing them 180 degrees into someone else, but you know, fanfic and the 90 percent rule.
crossposting - Each act as they are completed will be crossposted on adultfanfiction. net. I may or may not put it up on livejournal, depending on what people say in the reviews, but it would be under friendslock.
.o0o.
...next time...
Act 2: Take the Bull by the Horns
Wherein Kakashi has Issues with Pavlov, himself, and a certain blond, and Naruto takes issue with his running away. Cogs are turning beneath the surface and the changes that Orochimaru's capture have caused are starting to take effect. Also, hijinks, faceplants, and Academy life.
- 4
- 5
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