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Neko-Neechan - drakensis - 03-02-2007
Something I've been working on over on TFF. I'd appreciate any feedback y'all can offer. Thanks.
Yugito looked at the kid and then compared him to what she remembered from the briefing document she'd decided not to carry. Yellow hair, check. Whisker-marks on cheeks, check. Looked like she'd found the Kyuubi-vessel alright. He was currently studying a huge scroll in a secluded grove of the forests around Konohagakure - an odd place to be doing studying, but if he was as unwelcome as her information suggested then he might not dare study anywhere he might be found.
"Kage bunshin!" he shouted and the Hidden Cloud Jounin blinked. 'All the reports suggested that he wasn't showing any signs of the Kyuubi's power. And it looked like he'd failed their academy exam,' she thought. 'But that's a jounin-level technique.' Semi-solid duplicates of Uzumaki failed to appear, but the Nibi-vessel's keen senses could see the air ripple where a correct execution would have created the bunshin. For a first attempt, that wasn't at all bad. He certainly had to have significant chakra reserves to get that far.
"Not bad," she said, dropping out of the trees, catching the boy off guard. "But you'll have to do better than that if you want to succeed."
"Eek!" he yelped, almost falling over. "Oh that's not fair! I've barely had any time to learn something yet!"
Yugito blinked, keeping her body-language non-confrontational. "I don't understand."
Naruto frowned. "You're not from the Academy?"
"No," Yugito said, shaking her head. "I was just passing and heard you. Are you expecting someone from the Academy?"
"It's a special test!" Naruto said. "I've taken this scroll from the Hokage Tower and if I can learn a technique before they find me then it counts as passing the genin exams!"
She nodded her understanding. It seemed a little screwy, but it would be one way to let someone who didn't handle conventional learning well make up their chances by a practical test like this. "I see. Well, don't worry. I'm not from the Academy so I guess your time isn't up yet."
Naruto didn't say anything, instead looking at her face in apparent fascination.
'Crap, does he know I'm not from Konoha?' Yugito thought, worriedly. She let her cheeks redden. "Do have something on my face?"
"No," Naruto said, his own face reddening. 'Her eyes,' he realised. 'She doesn't look at me in that cold way that I hate.' "I'd better get back to work on this."
"Right!" Yugito said. "Here, let me give you hand to make up for interrupting you." She took the scroll and unrolled it to look over the instructions. The first thing that was apparent was that this would take a lot of chakra. If she was a normal kunoichi she'd barely be able to produce one or two of the enhanced bunshin. "So you need to mold your chakra like this," she said and a single kage bunshin popped into existence.
"Right!" Naruto said, and threw his chakra at the problem, to no avail. "What! No fair! I did just what you did!"
"Not quite," Yugito corrected. "Now look, the first step is here -" she pointed to the first stage. "So mold your chakra like this and hold it. One step at a time..."
.oOo.
It was almost dawn before Naruto had managed to work through the process completely and Yugito was impressed that he was able to keep going. 'So he's got good stamina as well,' she noted. 'That briefing is looking less and less adequate.' "Okay, Naruto," she said out loud. "Let's do this for real!"
"Right!" he declared. Together they made the seal and: "One, two, three - Kage bunshin!"
The air rippled and a small circle of Yugitos found themselves surrounded by a rather larger circle of Narutos. "We did it!" Naruto yelled and all the kage bunshins rushed together for a somewhat mob-like group hug, that shrank steadily as one after another of them popped out of existence.
"I guess we did!" Yugito agreed and then turned her head as she felt another chakra source approach. "And just in time. Listen, I'd better go hide, there might be a fuss if they found out I helped you."
"Right," Naruto nodded. "It's our secret."
"Exactly," she agreed. "Now knock 'em dead!"
"You got it, onee-chan!" Naruto said, and turned towards the approaching sounds while Yugito slipped into the cover of the trees.
'Oneechan?' she thought, and tried to ignore the warm feeling that the word created within her.
.oOo.
Naruto was dozing when Yugito arrived at his apartment the next day. Having established this, she quietly broke in and scoped out the place. Her briefing was apparently correct about at least a few details - there was no evidence of anyone else living there. It was also quite a mess, even by the standards of Yugito (who wasn't exactly a homebody) and the contents of his fridge were... worrying, slightly.
The presence of a Konoha forehead protector under his mirror made it clear that Naruto had succeeded in graduating. On one level, she admitted, it was gratifying for someone that was in some small way her student had succeeded. On the other hand, had he failed then several potentially rewarding avenues of recruitment would have presented themselves.
Naruto rolled over in his sleep and began to make noises that Yugito associated with impending waking, sending her quickly out of the apartment, resetting the locks behind her. Thus, when Naruto actually opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was a shadow at his window, a shadow cast by Yugito casually hanging off the frame.
"Yugito-neechan!" he cried and almost bounced out of his bed to open the window for her to enter. Unfortunately he'd forgotten that the window opened by swinging open, which it did with Yugito still hanging off of it. Even more unfortunately, the frame simply wasn't intended to carry the weight of an adult human, even a relatively willowy female example of the species. Yugito's face betrayed more offense at the indignity of her position than fear as the top hinge came loose.
There was a threatening crack from the now doubly burdened lower hinge and then Yugito's gloved hands slapped against the wall and the window simply hung awkwardly as she met Naruto's gaze evenly.
"Err... sorry..." he mumbled awkwardly.
"I suppose it was foolish of me to hang off that part of the window," she replied wryly. "May I come in?"
Naruto brightened. "Sure!" he said and backed up, watching as she almost flowed through the window and across his bed, moving with an easy athleticism that made a nothing of the awkward starting point. 'Someday I'm gonna be able to move like that,' he decided. 'Yugito-neechan is cool.'
"I see that you passed your test," she said with an approving nod towards the forehead protector.
"Yeah! Well, sorta," Naruto grumbled. "Mizuki-sensei was lying about there being another test to get me to steal the stupid scroll for him. But I beat him up and Iruka said that I'd done so well that I could graduate anyway!"
It was a tribute to her years of experience as a kunoichi of Kumo that Yugito's chagrin didn't reveal itself. "He used you!? Why that, that..." 'Dammit, dammit, dammit! What a missed opportunity!' "I hope you beat him bloody!"
Naruto smirked. "You can count on it, neechan. He was all big and bad until I went all Kage bunshin on him."
"And then your Iruka-sensei promoted you," Yugito said, "For stopping a traitor and rescuing the scroll. You don't do things halfway, do you... little brother?"
The smile on Naruto's face was almost ear to ear. "You know it, oneechan!"
Despite herself, Yugito knew that the smile on her face was in no sense the result of acting on her part. It was almost impossible not to see the younger demon-vessel as a younger sibling. 'You'll do better in Kumo than you do here,' she promised him silently. 'I'll see to that.'
"Now then," she said. "I seem to have damaged your window I'm afraid. Perhaps I can make it up to you by helping repair it...?"
.oOo.
It turned out that Naruto didn't have any tools to fix the window with, but once closed it stayed in the frame fairly well, so once Naruto was dressed (Yugito discreetly waited outside the one-room apartment), they went out to obtain the needed materials. They would have waited until Naruto had managed a breakfast for himself but Yugito had taken the milk carton from him and explained the significance of the date stamped on it to him, so some fresh milk was added to the little shopping list.
Yugito had long ago learnt, at the Kumo Ninja Academy, that one of the easiest things to gather information from a person about was to about themselves. Most people like to talk - it's flattering to be the centre of attention and even more flattering to have the listener remain fascinated when the subject is yourself. Naruto, being young, was even more prone to this that most people and so it only took the simplest verbal cues to keep him talking happily about anything and everything in his life.
Although a part of Yugito's attention was directed towards keeping careful track of everything said, another part was also twitching nervously at the sidelong looks that she was picking up as they walked through Konoha's streets. It was by no means the first time she'd visited the rival Hidden Village but then she'd been operating under complete cover and been careful not to draw attention to herself. Once she got past the gates using forged papers no one had paid any great attention to one more young woman on the streets. However, a young woman who was apparently the companion of the Kyuubi-vessel was rather more eye-catching it seemed and she had the irrational fear that someone had stuck a note on her back, identifying her as a Jounin of the Village Hidden in the Clouds.
The looks directed at Naruto also confirmed everything she'd learnt previously about how Konoha's population viewed him. Yugito's childhood had not been easy by any measure, but as the vessel in which the Nibi no Nekomata was sealed she had also been a valued resource and treated well, if not always fondly. It was... uncomfortable to see how the younger vessel was handled and she had to wonder whether, in the face of such quiet hatred, she would have turned out like Naruto or like the other known vessel, in Suna.
"...and then Mizuki-sensei said he'd tell me why everyone hated... me..." Naruto tailed off suddenly. "Uh, maybe I shouldn't say anything about that?" he said at the penetrating gaze that Yugito directed at him.
"You didn't know?" she asked, having to struggle to keep her voice down. Surely he should have known the truth about the Tailed Beast sealed inside of him! Whether the vessel liked the fate that they were condemned to when the seal was made or hated it, the connection to their prisoners would exist for as long as they both lived and Yugito could not remember a time before the whispers of the Nibi had crept through her mind, trying to shape her to it's will.
That was one reason, the main reason, that she had agreed to this mission. The Raikage could have talked about the strategic implications of removing a vessel from the control of Konoha until he was blue in the face, but it wasn't the concern that Suna and Konoha would join forces and deploy two vessels in the event of a war that convinced Yugito to accede to the proposed mission. Given the near disaster of the Gashir-Hyuuga operation almost a decade ago, no one would have criticised her for refusing the assignment - the whole Council was well aware that they had been no more ready to continue the war than Konoha had been and accepting the worthless body of a member of the Hyuuga branch family had been a face-saving gesture at best.
But the prospect of having another vessel as her apprentice, a vessel that she could guide through the hazards and trials of their nature into being another Kumo-nin that would really understand just how difficult it was sometimes to restrain the demon within from influencing her... that was what had really swayed her, and she was aware that it was to a degree that motivation which the Raikage had relied upon to sway her to support him in seeking to recruit Uzumaki Naruto away from the village of his birth and into the service of Kumo. Not that she blamed him - that sort of manipulation was part of the responsibilities of a Kage, but the fact remained that, whatever she might pretend, Naruto-kun was not just another mission for her.
She didn't notice the suffix she'd added to his name in her thoughts.
"Perhaps we should talk about this a little more privately," Yugito 'suggested' half-dragging Naruto into an alleyway.
"We don't have to if it upsets you," protested Naruto hastily. Being dragged around by a woman wasn't something he had a great deal of experience of. Actually the only woman he could remember ever touching him was Sakura and that was generally to hit him. Actually, it was always to hit him. But one day Sakura would see him differently and he'd be able to run his fingers through her blonde hair and whatever else it was that boyfriends and girlfriends did... wait, blonde hair?
"Naruto-kun," Yugito said firmly, distracting him from that line of thought. "I'm not going to force you to talk about it. But if you don't know about the Kyuubi then how can you use it?"
"Use it?" Naruto's brow furrowed. "I don't get it. How can I use it, it's all locked away inside my seal?" he asked, rubbing at his stomach to illustrate it's location.
"That's a good question," Yugito assured him. "The thing is that you're not just the prison, you're also the jailor. The seal should give you some control over the Kyuubi and it's powers. That's what the seals were invented for, after all."
"Sort of like it's a tenant and it has to pay rent?" asked Naruto after thinking about that point for a moment. "But I don't understand what you mean about the seals - didn't the Yondaime invent it to seal away the Kyuubi?"
"Not quite," the kunoichi disagreed. "He probably came up with that particular seal himself, mind you - it must be a very powerful seal to be able to confine the Nine-Tails - but he would have based it off the seals that were invented to seal away less powerful demons. For example, there's a boy in Suna just a little bit older than you who has the Ichibi no Tanuki sealed inside him."
Naruto's eyes went wide. "There's another boy like me?" he asked eagerly. "Really? Could I meet him, oneechan?"
"Well not quite like you," explained Yugito, a smile on her face. "And Suna is quite a distance from here. You couldn't go there and be here doing missions as a Konoha-nin at the same time. But the reason I mentioned him, is that he can use the power of the Ichibi to control sand, much better than any doton jutsus can, which makes him a really powerful ninja."
"Cool!" Naruto exclaimed. "Does that mean that I could do something like that? Because I've got the Kyuubi inside me."
"Oh yes," Yugito assured him, baiting her hook deftly. "Actually you'd probably be much stronger because the Kyuubi is the strongest of the Tailed Beasts and Ichibi is the weakest..."
"That's great!" Naruto declared. "I've gotta be a really strong ninja so that I can be the Hokage!"
"You want to be the Hokage?" Yugito said in surprise. Admittedly, she was strong enough to be a possible successor to the Raikage whenever he died or retired, but that had never been her desire. She'd had to deal with enough paperwork making reports and the idea of more responsibilities like that wasn't one that she liked. The idea that someone as lively as Naruto would want to sentence himself to it seemed particularly implausible.
"Yeah, you betcha!" the boy confirmed brightly, unaware of her musings. "I'm gonna be the strongest Hokage ever and then everyone will have to recognise me!"
'Well at least he doesn't think that it'll make everyone like him,' Yugito thought. "Well, as ambitions go, you don't think small, do you?"
"Nope," he said brightly. "That's why I've got to drink lots of milk so that I can grow up big and strong."
"But milk that's not so old that it makes you ill," chided Yugito waving one finger in front of his nose. "I hear a cue when I hear one," she added. "Let's go buy you some milk and what we need to fix your window."
.oOo.
Not wanting to be too obvious, Yugito waited outside the store while Naruto obtained the purchases. She basked in the direct sunlight, unashamed of that catlike action. Konoha's notoriously sunny weather made quite a change from the usually heavy clouds that gave their name to Lightning Country's Hidden Village and had always left Yugito feeling irritable, more as a response to the associated high air pressure than anything else.
The shop door slid open and Naruto came out carrying his purchases and followed by a mutter that made Yugito's ears twitch. "Hi, oneechan," Naruto called out, as if they'd parted hours ago and not mere minutes. "Would you like an apple?" He held up one, red and ripe, from the bag and threw it to her with a flick of his wrist when she held out her hand.
"Thank you," Yugito acknowledged him and they walked down the street companionably, each munching on one crisp apple.
"So how do you plan to become a Kage?" she asked, between two neat bites. "There are thousands of ninja in the world but only a very few are good enough to be chosen as the Kage of their village."
Naruto swallowed another mouthful. "I'm gonna be the strongest," he declared. "That way they'll have to choose me!"
"Will they?" asked Yugito speculatively. She waved her apple towards the Hokage Monument off in the distance. "I mean, the Yondaime Hokage was strong, yes. But he wasn't the strongest in the village."
"Sure he was!" Naruto declared. "He was strong enough to beat the Kyuubi, wasn't he?"
"Of course," Yugito agreed quickly. "No one's saying that he wasn't a great shinobi. But the Sandaime Hokage had three students of his own, all of them great ninja: the Legendary Three Ninja. One of them was the Yondaime's teacher. Isn't it natural that those three, older and more experienced, would have been stronger than the Yondaime? Sandaime was openly considering Orochimaru as a successor at one point, and he was considered a genius. Yondaime wasn't even all that famous except as being Jiraya's student until he made his name fighting Iwa. But he was the one who became Hokage and he's famed as the greatest Hokage of them all."
"I don't get it," Naruto said after a minute. He threw the apple core into a bin, pumping his arm in triumph as it sailed in. "Yeah! Did you see that?"
"I saw it," she assured him, and bit the end off her own core. It disappeared in three mouthfuls and Naruto stared at her in surprise.
"Why did you do that, Yugito-neechan? Isn't the core all tough?"
"Oh, when you're out on a mission you don't want to waste anything," Yugito told him. "Besides, there might not be a waste bin to dispose of it and if you just throw it away then it might be used to track you down."
'I've got to eat apples core and all then,' Naruto realised. 'Right then, it's a promise. I'll do that and then I can be a great ninja like oneechan... wait...' "Neechan, are you a ninja?"
She acted like a ninja - she'd hung off the window of his apartment and she'd learned Kage Bunshin with him - but now he noticed that she wasn't wearing a forehead protector, or even ninja sandals like his. The only thing restraining her long blonde hair was the tight braid that it was tied in and a lock at her forehead had escaped it, and was tucked casually behind one ear. Her trousers were tucked into boots like those Naruto had seen visiting merchants wear, the ones who walked carrying their goods or at least alongside the carts rather than riding lazily on wagons.
"But why aren't you wearing your forehead protector?" he asked when she nodded. "So that people know who you are?"
'Because I left it in a supply cache leftover from the last war, about a day's travel from Konoha,' thought Yugito, but instead she reached over and flicked the goggles on Naruto's own forehead. "And why aren't you wearing yours, Naruto-kun? After all, you're a ninja yourself now."
"I didn't want to damage it," he protested. "I'll wear it at the graduation ceremony."
"Well there you have it," Yugito told him. "I wear my forehead protector when I'm on duty and people need to know I'm a shinobi. But when I'm just walking around Konoha it's nice to just be me; and if anyone thinks less of me because they don't know that I'm a ninja then the more fool them."
.oOo.
In the end it took them both most of what was left of the afternoon to take the window out of it's frame, repair the damage done by their earlier misadventure and then refit it. Yugito could have done it faster, and arguably tracelessly, but instead took the opportunity to teach Naruto how to carry out the repair. "It's a useful skill anyway," she pointed out to him after correcting his use of nails for the third time, "and as an ninja, it can be handy to know how to break in through a window and then repair the damage so that no one knows that you've been there."
"That's cool," Naruto decided. "But it seems so..."
"Mundane?"
"I don't know what that means," he said sulkily.
"Everyday," Yugito said. "A lot of things are like that - you can henge to make yourself look like someone, but if you don't know how to act like them then you'll be caught, sure as sure."
"Right!" Naruto declared. "My Oiroke no Jutsu wouldn't be any use if I glared at them."
Yugito raised an eyebrow, curiously. "Oiroke no Jutsu?"
Naruto's eyes went wide. "Maybe I'd not talk about that any more, oneechan," he said pleadingly. 'Oh crap, oh crap,' he thought. 'Now she'll think I'm some kind of pervert like Jiji or Iruka-sensei.'
"I really think that you should tell me more about it, little brother," Yugito said mildly. "Perhaps even show me it. I really, really think you don't want me to misunderstand such an... interesting technique."
Somehow Naruto found it much harder to properly execute the masterful psychological maneuver of Oiroke no Jutsu with Yugito watching him, arms folded and face indicating amusement at his reticence. It actually took him three attempts to carry out the henge and rather than the usual sexy pose, he found himself just standing there a little uncertainly, covering a few strategic areas with his arms, before returning to his usual self.
Yugito winced. "Naruto-kun..." she said in a disappointed voice that left the newly minted genin studying his sandals and feeling about three inches tall. "If you're going to use a move like that, then it's important that you do it properly. Surely you can do better than that."
Naruto's head snapped upwards and after a moment, his jaw followed up. "Oiroke no Jutsu!" he declared proudly and his transformed appearance eyed Yugito boldly, cooing "Oneechan..." pleadingly as she pressed her 'assets' firmly against the blonde woman's arm. Despite herself a slight tinge of pink crept across Yugito's cheeks.
"Now that's much more like it," she said encouragingly and thought back to her own academy days. Although she was primarily a combat specialist, she had also gone through the basic courtesan courses when she was Naruto's age. "But your lips would be better a little glossier and try to breathe more when your speaking, like this."
She henged, long experience letting her do so without seals, into a near duplicate of Naruto's Oiroke form. "Oh!" she gasped, her voice low and sultry. "Naruto-sama... you're so strong..."
Naruto returned to normal, his face red as the apple he'd eaten earlier; and in the Hokage Tower, the Sandaime Hokage fell backwards out of his chair, blood escaping from his nose and a little giggle from his lips as he had tuned his crystal ball in to Naruto's apartment a moment too late to see Yugito henge but just in time to see a pair of blonde twins in an intimate looking embrace.
'He's refined it even further...' he bemoaned. 'Combining it with a bunshin... I'd better not look in on his apartment again, probably...'
.oOo.
Yugito waited until Naruto was on his way to the Hokage Tower to have his photograph taken for the official records before she left him to go make her first report. Not that he knew she was there, of course - he hadn't actually seen her since she left him the previous day with a repaired window for his apartment and a much improved Oiroke no Jutsu for his arsenal. However, given the obvious gaps in what she had been briefed, the jounin had been maintaining a quiet surveillance of Naruto all through the night and well into the morning.
Visiting the Hokage tower was rather significantly more exposure than she wanted to risk however, given the large numbers of ninja that would be around the centre of Konoha. It would be valuable to see what ties Naruto had to the leadership of his village - thus far she'd heard only his Academy teacher Iruka and an unnamed old man being spoken of fondly - but even if she'd had very little involvement in the war with Konoha, it was still possible that someone might recognise her from the local bingo book. It would be rather overconfident to believe that the second-strongest ninja in Kumo was not a matter of record.
There was always the possibility that Kumo's network in Konoha had been compromised or that Yugito could be captured and interrogated, so rather than being given details for an agent-in-place, she had her own particular contact arrangements outside of Konoha. It was a two hour walk to the village that was her destination, although as a ninja she could have crossed the distance far more swiftly had she the need. There was too much chance of being observed however, so she instead donned a simple disguise and walked down the road quite openly.
In the event it took her almost three hours to arrive after coming across a cart headed in the same direction. It was moving slower but travelling as part of the little group associated with the cart was considerably less eye-catching than being alone. Parting ways from her travelling companions, Yugito altered her disguise slightly and slipped over the wall into a small inn that catered to visitors on the way to Konoha.
Her contact, who was busily chopping wood for the old-fashioned under floor heating that was the inn's only real claim to fame, was an Kumo genin, an older man who knew that he was never going to make chuunin and that he was slowing down a lot. Often ninja in that position retired to support positions and to care for their families, but Kumo was always careful to pick out a handful for sleeper missions. A similar agent had built the inn originally, but he had gotten caught during the war and disappeared into the ANBU cells. However, a second agent had been in place to watch the first and when the inn was confiscated he'd become manager for the new owners, allowing it to continue as a safe house for Kumo. Using it was always a risk, but a calculated one.
"Tending the fires in Fire Country?" she asked casually, the slight joke a code between them, confirming that she was who he was expecting and that she did not believe that she had been followed.
"Something like that," the man said, not pausing in his work. "Sinobi sends his regrets that he can't be here."
Yugito relaxed a little at getting the correct counter-sign. Sinobi was, of course, a reference to the elite jounin who had been killed in Konoha ten years ago while trying to abduct an infant member of the Hyuuga clan. The fact that he was killed outright was one reason that Yugito had been sent in 'illegally' rather than using legitimate business to cover for her purposes. If Konoha was willing to violate the diplomatic immunity of a formal ambassador then legal protection would count for nothing and secrecy was the only hope of success.
"I'd better not be gone too long," she said. "Our information on the primary target had some gaps but there are some very promising chances of success. I already lost one because I didn't find out until too late. On the other hand, his seal may not be the same type as mine - I'll provide a full report later but the demon seems to be more closely confined."
He nodded. "Okay. I'll pass that on. Pity about the missed chance but you only just got there. You think he's a good risk?"
"Naruto-kun has considerable potential," Yugito said firmly, not speaking of his capabilities as a ninja. "If anything, the initial analysis understated how little connection he has to Konoha. Granted, there is no certainty, but I've made positive contact with him and should it come to that, I don't anticipate difficulty in a total neutralisation. The questions about the seal suggest that removal of the Kyuubi to another vessel is not advisable without more information."
She shrugged. "With so much going on with the primary, I haven't been able to do more than identify the secondary targets. I've located all but one of them - the Hyuuga boy's team seems quite active. I'll report more once I have better reports."
"Understood," her contact said. He glanced at her - "'Naruto-kun'? Are you getting attached to him, Yugito-sama?"
Yugito's eyes narrowed. "And the reverse," she told the genin in a cold voice. "That is the primary objective, is it not? The willing recruitment of a younger vessel to our village? What did you think he would be offered - wealth and power? He's twelve years old and alone - so I'm offering him a family. What stronger lure could there be?" 'At his age all I wanted to be was alone, away from the Nibi, but that was under very different circumstances.'
"Sorry," he apologised but Yugito knew that the implication of his suggestion would be part of his report. That was his duty and accepting that allegations would be raised was part of hers.
"I'll return later," she told him, already heading back to the wall. The jounin forced herself to focus on the immediate problems of re-entering Konoha covertly, and not the rich prizes that she had been sent to obtain there. The bloodline limits of Konoha had been one of the key factors that had let them stand up to Kumo in the last war and even if it cost another war, the Raikage intended to gain those priceless advantages for Kumo - only the recruitment of another Tailed Beast's vessel was of higher priority.
.oOo.
"Why was the Yondaime chosen as the Hokage?" Naruto asked.
"Hmm?" Yugito asked. After returning to Konoha and sharing some instant ramen with Naruto, she'd sprawled out on his bed and let him nestle against her and tell her all about his day. It was a rather intimate arrangement for Naruto, who was almost pathetically eager for human contact after the way he'd been treated by the rest of the village and he snuggled contentedly against Yugito like a child taking comfort from his mother. For her part, while Yugito had never laid claim to any maternal instincts at all, she suspected that the Nibi's feline instincts found this level of contact very satisfying.
"You said that the Yondaime wasn't made the Hokage because he was the strongest," Naruto reminded her. "That other fellow, Orochimaru was stronger, remember?"
"He's probably even stronger now," said Yugito absently. "No one knows exactly because he went off and became a Missing-Nin about that time. I don't know what his reasons were though."
Naruto wriggled to look at Yugito's face. "But why was he Hokage?"
"Why do you think he was the Hokage?" Yugito said, turning the question back upon him. "If you'd been the Sandaime Hokage why would you have chosen him rather than Orochimaru? After all, when you're Hokage who would you choose as your successor?"
With the question put onto his shoulders, Naruto snuggled back down and thought about it. 'It's not fair,' he thought. 'How can I know how I'd choose when I don't know anything about them except how strong they were?' He paused and then blinked. 'That's it!' "Yugito-neechan, what were they like?"
"Orochimaru is very clever," Yugito told him. "He knew almost as many jutsu as the Proffessor and wanted to know every jutsu that ever was and to be the most powerful ninja that ever was. He didn't have many friends but he had an apprentice and he was always looking for ways to make the shinobi under his command stronger weapons."
"The Yondaime didn't know anything like as many jutsu but he invented two very powerful ones all of his own. He had a team of genin and when one of them was killed fighting against the ninja of Iwa he went on a rampage and killed a hundred Iwa ninja in revenge."
"Oh," Naruto said and kicked his legs absently off the side of the bed as he rested his head on Yugito's shoulder in thought. "I think I'd pick Yondaime then. Because Orochimaru wanted his ninja to be stronger but Yondaime didn't want them to die. He sounds nicer."
"I guess you're right," Yugito said. "Yondaime was much more popular than Orochimaru because everyone trusted him to look after his subordinates and when he was the Hokage all the village were his subordinates. Orochimaru only cared about the strong and those he could make strong."
"So does that mean I shouldn't try to be strong to be Hokage?" asked Naruto after a while.
Yugito shrugged. "I never wanted to be a Kage," she said lazily. "It seems like too much work. But I suppose you'd have to be liked enough to be trusted to want to protect people and strong enough to be trusted that you can."
"Oh," Naruto murmured. "I said something like that to Konohamaru."
"Who's Konohamaru?"
"Eh, he's this brat who wants to be Hokage," Naruto replied. "Why are you giggling, neechan?"
"I'm not giggling," Yugito told him straightfaced.
"Yes, you were," he said. "I could feel you right here," he said, reaching up to next to his head and putting his hand against her ribs and just below her breast. "It was shaking."
"Well perhaps just a little," she conceded, ruffling his hair. "So how did you meet this Konohamaru?"
"Ah, he came running into O-jiji's office while we were arguing over my photo," Naruto explained. "Wanted to challenge him for the Hokage title - he's his grandson you see, so he can go there anytime. Except he couldn't really fight him 'cause I used the Oiroke already, like you'd showed me. He was really miffed about that and kept bugging me about wanting to learn it."
Yugito smiled and played a little more with the boy's hair. "So is he any good?"
"I didn't say I taught him it, Yugito-neechan!"
"Naruto-kun, if you didn't teach it to this kid, who'd use it indiscriminately on every pervert in town, then I don't know you a tenth as well as I think I do."
Naruto blushed. "Oh. Well, yeah. Sort of. I mean, I had to do it O-jiji just to get him to use my photo. I spent hours getting ready for that, all that face paint and then practising my pose in front of the mirror..." Yugito had already seen and admired the copy that Naruto had brought back with him. "But there was this closet pervert who kept interfering so I don't think Konohamaru managed to get it right. I got him properly though!"
"Oh?"
"Yeah! It's a whole new trick with it - I call it Harem no Jutsu! I use Kage Bunshin and then have all the copies use Oiroke no Jutsu with me! It really did a number on that guy - he kept saying that it was really vulgar and wouldn't work on a 'gentleman' like him, but he was just a liar 'cause it totally did!"
"Oh-ho!" Yugito said. "Maybe you should show me what you did, so that I can deal with this fellow - what did you say his name was?"
"He said he was 'the elite sensei Ebisu'," Naruto declared with mock hauteur. "But he's really just a closet pervert!" With that, he created three clones and applied henge. "Ooo, Ebisu-sama," they all sighed lustily and one of them reached forwards to run one finger down Yugito's chest (which didn't have quite the same result as it would have on a man's chest).
Yugito laughed... or to be more precise, giggled. She hadn't giggled in years. "Good job, little brother. But it won't work on everyone... will it?"
"I guess not," Naruto said with a humph, releasing the clones but leaving the henge up, recognising Yugito's tone of voice as her 'sensei-mode'. "Not everyone's a pervert, after all."
"Still, with variations, it's possible to use similar techniques to the Oiroke with considerable effect," she suggested. "Supposing that you wanted to effect girls with the Oiroke no Jutsu? How would you need to change it?"
.oOo.
Yugito trailed Naruto to the Academy the next day, wanting a closer look at the other targets as well as keeping track of Naruto. She'd already identified them when they left the Academy after their graduation, but that was all she had. It wasn't exactly her cup of tea as a ninja - her primary focus had been on combat operations, but information gathering and analysis were still among the basic skills.
It didn't take much effort to find a place where she could see into the classroom from. Naruto took a seat next to Uchiha Sasuke, another high value target, and in front of Nara Shikamaru, who could be useful if he could be aquired. Judging by the latter boy's posture - sprawled out laconically - he wouldn't be a good candidate for recruitment, being too content with where he was. She shifted angle slightly and saw that Shikamaru was next to Akimichi Chouji. A moment's reflection put him in the same catagory as Shikamaru. Obviously the Ino-Shika-Cho alliance was still going strong. Pity.
Fortunately, Uchiha Sasuke was everything Kumo could have wanted as long as what they didn't want was a functional shinobi. No friends among the class and they already knew that his only remaining family could easily become an inducement for him to leave Konoha. The students further from the window were harder to see but a flash of colour at the rear door caught Yugito's attention. Good grief, at least Naruto had seen the sense in covering his bright hair by using his forehead protector as a bandanna. But bright pink hair and she then made it worse with a blood red dress? Shuriken fodder.
The pink-haired girl moved towards Naruto and for a moment Yugito was concerned that she might be a friend of his. A moment later she realised that Pinkie was actually interested in Sasuke and was dismissing Naruto totally. Good in a sense, although it could cause trouble if Naruto got stubborn, which would be entirely in character she realised uneasily.
She watched Naruto move to glare at Sasuke with more mixed feelings - enmity might make it difficult to recruit both, but would provide a lever to move either one - and only firm discipline kept her from laughing out loud as Naruto was knocked and fell into mouth to mouth contact with the other guy. Her impulse was cut off in favour of rather more homicidal thoughts as Pinkie promptly led what almost amounted to a lynch mob at poor Naruto.
Yugito took a hold of herself. What was she thinking? If she smashed into the room to rescue him then the mission was over, her only chance would be to grab him and run for her life, hoping not to be intercepted before she could get to safety - and that would be little enough hope carrying someone else, who might well not be willing to leave. So why was she even considering the notion?
Although she watched the girls move back from a battered but otherwise intact Naruto, eyes narrow with dislike for them, her mind was whirling. She'd been about to intervene, for Naruto's sake, and risk an important mission for the sake of him suffering a few trivial injuries, injuries that in the long run would only benefit her. That wouldn't be acceptable if she did so for a fellow Kumo-nin such as she hoped Naruto-kun would become. 'Naruto-kun... when did I start thinking of him like that? I've only known him a few days but... How did he create such a bond with me so swiftly? Why does he affect me so strongly?'
Absorbed in her thoughts, she barely noticed as the youngsters were grouped into teams, until she saw Naruto paired with Pinkie and the Uchiha, something that almost shocked her into forgetting her concerns entirely. 'Are they entirely insane?' she wondered. 'Konoha might as well be passing me Naruto on a platter, and their precious last Uchiha in the process!'
The only girl not to participate in Naruto's beating got paired with a Inuzuka and an Aburame. She'd be well protected, which was a shame because she was another target, the heir to the Hyuga's main family. It would be chancy to make a move to capture her; and daring after the Gashir disaster, but for that very reason it might succeed. Shikamaru and Chouji got paired up with Yamanaka Ino. Yep, that was the old alliance again. If they made the final selection then it wouldn't be as recruits, it would be as samples, perhaps used to breed their clans' bloodline limits into Kumo families, but not as Kumo-nin themselves. 'Those three clans are entirely too sensible about their childrearing practises to give us the openings we have elsewhere. It's a shame for the kids if we take them, but that's what you risk when you're good enough to operate in the big leagues.'
With the general disposition of her interests settled, Yugito moved away. Her next major stop should be the training ground where she had discovered that Maito Gai liked to work with his team between missions. The kids on that team were supposed to be among the best of Konoha's young genin and impressions of them would have been valuable even if there weren't targets on the team. She paused, however, moving through one of the shopping districts and a few minutes later an apparently elderly woman entered one of the stalls and purchased two sets of black pants and shirts suitable for a ninja, as gifts for her grandson... who she took pains not to name, describing him in general terms.
She returned to Naruto's apartment and hid the package of clothes under Naruto's bed before setting out again for the training grounds. Judging by what she knew of teenage boys and by the small economic community of dust bunnies that had evolved under the bed, the chances of Naruto finding them unprompted were negligible.
.oOo.
"So how did it go?" Yugito asked when Naruto walked in to their apartment. His apartment, actually, she reminded herself. Just because she was spending a lot of time here didn't mean she should get all domestic. She'd managed to observe Maito Gai's team as well and Hyuga Neji was looking like almost as positive a prospect as the Uchiha brat. It was a good job that she had been gone, actually, as it looked like someone had visited the apartment in the interval before she left the new clothes there for Naruto.
"I'm on the same team as Sakura-chan!" Naruto said, a little sadly.
Yugito frowned. "Is that bad?" she asked. "I thought that Sakura was the girl that you like."
The boy scuffed at the floor. "Yeah... and I tied up Sasuke-teme and spoke to Sakura using a henge to make me look like him."
Yugito shrugged. It was pretty duplictious, but he was a shinobi after all. "So what's the problem?"
"Well, the thing is... she was going to kiss me! Well him, but it was really me, and I couldn't... I... ran away," he said. "I thought I wanted her to kiss me, but it just felt all wrong. And I don't know why."
"And now you're on the team with her, so you're going to be on missions with her, relying on each other, and you don't know how you feel about her," Yugito concluded. "Hmm. You do have a problem."
"Yeah," Naruto groaned and walked over to flop onto the bed. Yugito followed and let him lay up against her, as they had the previous day. "Why do I feel bad about kissing Sakura-chan, Yugito-neechan?" he asked her. "It felt like I'd drunk a whole pint of milk after it had been out in the sun all day."
'Somehow I don't think telling him that she's a little bitch would help much,' Yugito thought. "Well, sometimes our bodies tell us things that our minds don't recognise yet," she said instead. "Maybe it wouldn't have been such a good idea to kiss Sakura when she thought she was kissing Sasuke."
Naruto went still. "Oh. Yeah, she'd have been even more into him then, 'cause she'd think he was such a great kisser."
"You're a great kisser then?" Yugito asked, teasingly. "My, the things that I haven't learned about you yet, Naruto-kun."
"You don't believe me!" accused Naruto and glared at her.
The glare didn't seem to have much effect, for the next thing she did was giggle. "But Naruto-kun, you've never kissed me, so how can I tell?"
"Oh yeah?" Naruto said, and swung one leg over her so that he was sitting upright over her taut stomach, lookign down on her. Frantically he tried to remember everything he'd ever heard about kissing, which wasn't much, since most of what he knew came from the discarded magazines he'd used when he was coming up with the Oiroke no Jutsu. Then he leant forwards, locking his wide blue eyes on her angular ones, and pressed his lips against Yugito's.
A warm jolt went through Yugito as Naruto straddled her. Realistically, she knew that she could throw him off easily, but the soft whispers in her ear from the Nibi denied her that, sapping her will to do anything but meet the boy's gaze as he lowered his face towards hers. A pleasent buzz went through her as their lips met and she wrapped her arms around him, holding him gently against her until they had to break off, redfaced and gasping for breath. It was probably the most chaste kiss that Yugito had had since the first boys in Kumo had dared to try to find out if the Nibi-vessel was a demon in the bed as well as on the battlefield. She'd never been entirely comfortable with how it seemed to rouse the Nibi's curiousity which was why such encounters had tended to be brief but intense. This was the first time though that she had felt that the Nibi was not only aware of the boy in her arms but that the Nibi was a participant as well. It should have felt wrong, as if she was being intruded upon. But it didn't.
"I think you were right," she said once her lungs had taken in a mouthful or two of air. "If you kissed Sakura like that then she'd definitely have felt strongly about it."
Naruto blushed. "It probably wouldn't have been like that," he confessed. "That was... wow..."
Yugito chuckled and for a moment she thought about pulling him down again, but the moment had passed and she suspected that pushing this too fast would scare him away. And she didn't want to do that. "Well, we can stipulate at least that you are indeed a very good kisser, Naruto-kun." He probably hadn't thought that he could blush brighter. "But if Sakura thought that Sasuke was a good kisser then what would she do?"
"She'd want to kiss him again," Naruto grumped, sliding off Yugito and snuggling against her. "And Ino would want to as well."
"Ino?"
"She's nuts for Sasuke-teme as well," he explained. "They're always fighting over him."
"So is this Ino the other person on your team?"
Naruto shook his. "No, it's me, Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme. But Ino's Sakura-chan's rival so she'd be sure to brag about it to her. Man, everyone'd want to kiss Sasuke. 'Cept you."
Yugito grinned. "Damn right I don't want to kiss him. Ick. Why would I want to kiss him when you're around?" She ruffled his hair as he beamed. "Why don't you take a look under the bed, kid? I think that there might be a present there for you."
Naruto blinked. "A present?" He almost teleported off the bed and burrowed under it head-first. A moment later, he came out carrying the package as if it contained a hoard of priceless diamonds or something. "There is! But who'd buy me a present?"
Yugito waved. "Congratulations on graduating from the Academy, Naruto-kun."
"Wow!" Naruto shouted and dropped the package to dive onto the bed and hug her. "Yugito-chan, you're awesome!"
"You bought me new clothes?" Naruto asked, holding up a black shirt and pants.
"Yep," Yugito agreed. "How better to show your sensei that you're not just some kid from the Academy? Sorry they aren't orange," (she lied) "but they didn't have anything that colour in your size."
"That's okay, Oneechan!" Naruto said proudly. "I can wear my jacket over it like this, see?" He pulled off his jacket and T-shirt, donned the black shirt and then his jacket over it. It almost completely negated the stealth benefits of his new clothes of course, but she supposed that she'd have to take things one step at a time. Speaking of one step at a time, Naruto was halfway out of his trousers when he realised that he was showing his boxers. To Yugito. Who was a girl. He went bright red.
"Naruto?" Yugito said with a lazy smile. "What were we just doing?"
"Uh..." Even redder. Why did that always happen about Yugito?
"So do you really think I mind seeing you in your boxers?"
Naruto gulped. Ohmigod, she's flirting with me. Or is she? Why doesn't Sakura smile at me like that? he wondered, automatically going through the motions of changing his pants.
Yugito got off the bed, straightened up Naruto's forehead protector and then pushed him in front of the mirror. The Naruto who looked back at him was wearing black pants taped at the ankles and a black shirt under the same orange jacket that he'd been wearing for years. His blonde hair was hidden under the blue cloth of the forehead protector, making him look darker and more mysterious. If it wasn't for the whisker marks on his face he wouldn't have recognised himself. Nervously he grinned and then smiled wider as he saw that it was still him and he wasn't turning into the Teme.
.oOo.
Yugito ran through the seals for Kage Bunshin again, nodded and then made another change to the notes she was making on a small scroll. It was one thing to learn a kinjutsu from a scroll, particularly when the principle hindrance to learning it was merely the rather high chakra requirements - something that didn't particularly hinder Yugito since she could draw upon the virtually limitless chakra of the Nibi no Nekomata. It was quite another to transcribe those details from memory, trying to recreate the scroll, at least the parts relevant to the jutsu.
It was still worth the effort however. Naruto had left for the survival exercise that his new sensei (the redoubtable Sharingan Kakashi, no less) had decreed for the first day of the new team, and Yugito didn't plan to blindly blunder around a training ground under those circumstances - she'd try iniltration later once she'd had a chance to get a better idea of the terrain and of Hatake's habits. Since the other targets were in the same situation, except Maito Gai's team that was on a mission outside the village, there wasn't anything else to do to amuse herself and adding another jutsu, even one that only a jounin or better could use, to Kumo's library was worthwhile.
Kage Bunshin wasn't just one step beyond a normal Bunshin technique, creating a semi-solid copy capable of making attacks rather than the entirely illusionary copies of the Academy-level technique. There were other methods of providing semi-solid clones, ones that required substantially less chakra because they were anchored on some base material such as mud or simple water. Yugito herself had used Mizu Bunshin for years, a technique used as often by the ninja of the villages along the eastern seaboard as it was by the Kiri-nin who had originated the jutsu.
It wasn't likely that a ninja wouldn't have some water or some earth to use as a base, but it was possible, in the deserts of Wind Country for example, or the harsher mountains of Stone Country. Yugito, who'd visited both over the years, could easily envisage occasions where a Kage Bunshin would have been more useful, particularly since the fiery nature of the Tailed Beast she carried was somewhat at odds with the water-based technique she had been taught. Even if the rest of the mission was a flat failure, this was a genuine gain for Kumo and given another couple of hours she'd have enough detail to be able to send the scroll back to Kumo through her contact.
She didn't pause in her writing when she heard the scrape of a foot against the floor outside the door to Naruto's apartment. One footstep, with all the other steps having been silent? Someone was sneaking up on her. Casually, she ran through the seals once more, this time molding the chakra and a clone popped into existence behind her. A kawarimi swapped her for the clone so smoothly that there wasn't even a pause in the soft scratching of her pen against the scroll.
With a single catlike bound, she crossed the distance to the wall, landing silently and turning her head to place her ear against the wall to listen for more trace sounds. Whoever was out there had been clumsy enough to slip up once and might make another mistake. She had to wonder who it might be though - Naruto's apartment was at the end of the floor so it couldn't be someone passing by and if they were here for innocent purposes, they why were they using such a degree of stealth?
There was another scrape, this time against the door and so faint that she probably wouldn't have heard it from the table. Reaching out with one slim finger, Yugito flicked the latch lightly. Unconstrained, the door swung open and a startled girl in her mid-teens all but tumbled across the threshold. Yugito casually kicked her legs out from under her and let the bunshin, risen from the table, restrain the new arrival while Yugito closed the door and latched it again.
Brown hair, cut to be no more than jaw-length, and brown eyes. Wearing a tough canvas jacket over rather snugly cut ninja-gear. Looked about fifteen, busty and while she might be booksmart, she probably wasn't exactly field-hardened. Hmm. Not hard to guess her mission.
The younger kunoichi flinched under Yugito's unamused gaze. "Let me guess," the Kumo-nin said mildly. "You're an Iwa-nin..."
"No," the girl lied quickly.
"...sent here to infiltrate the apartment of Uzumaki Naruto..."
"No," she denied before flushing as she recalled that she had essentially been caught in the act so there hadn't been any actual point to making a denial.
"...to seduce him and then use the resulting affection to cause him to defect to Iwagakure." The statement hadn't been a question.
"How did you know?" the kunoichi asked in a subdued voice.
Yugito considered mentioning the dirt on the girl's sandals, distinctively that found along the border between Stone and Fire Countries, the bend in her hair that marked where a forehead protector was usually found or that given the infiltration of Naruto's apartment, the only other likely mission would be an assassination that the kunoichi was ill-equipped with. "Just a guess," she said instead, and giggled.
"What's so funny?" the girl demanded. "You've caught me, so get it over with." She held up her head, exposing the throat as if expecting Yugito to plant a kunai in it.
"For someone sent on a mission requiring wit and feminine wiles," Yugito said drily, "You're a little under-equipped."
"Screw you, old lady," her prisoner spat defiantly.
Yugito would have twitched but she refused to give this little whelp the satisfaction. "Grow up, kid. I'm not going to kill you unless you do something remarkably stupid." She paused to let that sink in. "Nor am I going to hand you over to Ibiki's crew - if you knew anything worth knowing then you'd not have been sent this deep into Konoha."
Then she grinned wickedly. "Still, I can't let you off entirely."
.oOo.
Less than an hour later, Yamase Chihaya was still running north-east from Konoha, but she could finally feel the sting of the welts on her buttocks begin to fade. The sting of the blonde kunoichi's words as she had laid Chihaya over her knee with no more difficulty than she would have had manhandling a child, yanked down her shorts and spanked her scarlet, were not fading at all.
"'Go back to your mother and stop playing with shinobi'?" she spat. "Like hell I will. I'll be back, old lady and I'll find you. And then I'll make sure that everyone knows that it was Yamase Chihaya of Iwagakure who humbled you and stole away the heart of Uzumaki Nawudo!"
Yes, yes. We know. But why burst the bubble of an airhead?
.oOo.
Naruto brightened as he saw Yugito ahead of him as he walked back to their apartment. His apartment, his apartment, why was he thinking of it as theirs? She must have her own place, even if she suddenly hung around at his a lot of the time. Maybe she was just bored, he speculated, feeling a little cold at the thought. If she was bored of hanging around her own home then maybe she was only being friendly until she could go out on missions again - and then she'd forget all about him.
Naruto paused, the cold feeling turning into a churning of his guts that seemed worse than it would have been had he been about to throw up the contents of one of the bentos that Kakashi-sensei had provided for lunch. It had been a dirty trick, splitting the three of them up like that and saying they shouldn't eat breakfast so the new genin would have to fight him on empty stomachs. Still, on Yugito's advice he'd brought along a couple of ration bars that had tided him over the wait until Kakashi arrived, so he wasn't so hungry that he couldn't think of anything but the bentos once Kakashi explained the test to them.
"Naruto-kun!" Yugito called and Naruto blinked out of his uncharacteristic fit of introspection to see that she had changed directions and was walking back down the street towards him. "How did your survival training go?"
There were surprised looks from a couple of passersby who hadn't realised that the black-clad young shinobi was the same orange nuisance that had plagued the village for the last decade or so. Naruto waved back. "Kakashi-sensei was lying!" he shouted back, not waiting until he got to her. "It wasn't training, it was another rotten cheating test!"
"Another test?" Yugito said, close enough for her surprised expression to be clearly visible. "How many tests are you going to have to take before they trust you, Naruto-kun?"
"Doesn't matter!" the boy told her excitedly. "I passed and I'm gonna pass them all until I'm the greatest ever Hokage!"
"So what was the test?" she asked.
"Aw, we had to take some bells off Kakashi-sensei's belt," Naruto said.
"Three genin took bells off the belt of the famous Copy-Ninja?" Yugito said. "You must have had good teamwork if you could manage that." Most jounin would be challenged to do that - is the great Hatake Kakashi slowing down?
Naruto pouted. "But there were only two bells and he said that only the ones with the bells wouldn't have to go back to the Academy."
"Ah." Yugito considered what that meant, given the personalities involved. "Let me guess, you didn't team up, and you didn't get the bells. Young Uchiha wouldn't care about anyone else and wouldn't want any help at all. You probably tried to take him on head on?"
"Yugito-neechan! How'd you know that?"
"Oh, I'm pretty good at guessing," she said with a smile. "So, looking back, what did you do wrong?"
"Kakashi-sensei said we should have teamed up to take him on," Naruto said. "Because 'ninja who break the rules are trash but ninja who abandon their comrades are less than trash'."
Yugito blinked. "That's... one view. So how did you pass if you didn't get the bells?"
Naruto shrugged. "Kakashi-sensei tied Sakura to a post and wouldn't give her lunch because he said she was the most useless but she'd have been really useless if she didn't have any lunch after not having breakfast either, so I swapped a clone for her so that she could get something to eat without him seeing it but he saw anyway and said that we passed because I broke the rules to help her... and cause Sasuke made a diversion to cover for the swap so we all did something I guess."
"You're right," Yugito said after a moment. "That is a lame test. But what did you learn from it?"
"That Sakura-chan sucks as a ninja?" he asked, shoulder slumping. "I mean, she's really pretty and she's smart and stuff, but she didn't even try to get the bells. Kakashi hit her with a genjutsu and she fainted! At least Sasuke-teme tried."
"What did you do exactly?" Yugito said. "Run through it one stage at a time. It's important to learn everything that you can from an experience, so that you'll do better next time."
Naruto frowned in thought. "Well, the others went off to hide. Kakashi said something about how I should too, and started reading his book. So I attacked him with lots of clones, but he used a henge to look like one of the clones and escaped in the confusion. Once I got that sorted out, he attacked me with... well it was a really pervy taijutsu attack and it hurt a lot." He rubbed at his butt.
Yugito frowned slightly. "Naruto, did he touch you somewhere he shouldn't have?" Naruto flushed, which was all the answer that she needed. "You should probably try not to be alone with him then," the kunoichi warned. "If he's touching you like that without your permission... well, a sensei shouldn't do that sort of thing."
"I, uh, I think it was just an attack," Naruto said redfaced.
"Well..." Yugito hesitated. "Just be careful... and be sure to tell me if he does anything like that again!" She glared at Naruto until he nodded his head vigorously. "So what happened then?"
.oOo.
"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto asked that evening. "Could I ask you a question?"
"I think you just did," the chuunin replied from the stool next to Naruto's at Ichiraku's. They'd met for a celebratory bowl (or two) of Ramen over Naruto's graduation from the Academy and into the ranks of the Konoha shinobi, unusually however, Naruto had seemed less hungry than usual and he was merely toying with his third bowl of Ramen when Iruka finished his first.
"Can I ask you another question, then? After this one?"
Iruka shrugged. "Alright. What can I help you with?"
"Well," Naruto said edgily. "It's about Kakashi-sensei... he used an attack when we were fighting... and... argh, I don't know how to ask this..." he trailed off clutching at his forehead protector.
"If it's one of Kakashi's attacks then why aren't you asking him about it?" Iruka asked curiously. He noticed that Ayame was taking her usual long time to clean up just opposite where Naruto was and hid a smile. It was good that Naruto had made a good impression on the girl (Naruto, had he been asked, would have said with some accuracy that while Ayame was nicer to him than most people, she didn't hang around like that except when Iruka was there).
Naruto shook his head. "But I can't just ask him if he's a pervert!" he exclaimed. "Then he'd know I was on to him!"
Iruka paused and Ayame forgot to pretend that she was working to stare at the booth's number one customer. "I don't quite understand," said Iruka. "You were talking about one of his attacks so how does this connect to him being a pervert."
Naruto flushed. "It's a kind of pervy attack," he said.
"Aren't you the expert on those, Naruto-san?" Ayame asked evenly.
"Oiroke no Jutsu's an ANTI-pervert jutsu!" Naruto told her loudly. "But Kakashi-sensei jammed his fingers up my butt!"
The two adults went white. "He did... what?" Iruka asked, dropping his chopsticks into the broth.
"Is that really a ninja technique?" demanded Ayame.
Naruto shrugged. "I guess so. He called it 'Konoha's Ultimate Attack: Thousand Years of Pain' or something like that."
"I've never heard of that!" Iruka protested quickly as Ayame started to glower at him. "Are you sure that he was aiming for that, Naruto? He couldn't have made a mistake or something?"
The blond genin shook his head vigorously. "No, he aimed and everything," he said. "Sakura-chan and Sasuke both saw him."
Iruka nodded slowly, hands closing on the countertop. "I'm glad you told me about this, Naruto. I don't think that he should be allowed to do that at all. I'm going to talk to the Hokage about this, but I want you to promise me that you'll be careful not to be alone with him in future."
"Right!" Naruto promised fervently. "Should I warn Sakura and Sasuke about him?"
"That's a good idea," Ayame said firmly. "Just wait a minute, Iruka-san and I'll go with you to see the Hokage." She vanished into the back of the booth and emerged a minute later, wearing her a coat instead of her apron and headscarf. Iruka blinked, he'd intended on speaking to the Hokage the next morning rather than right away, but he fumbled the cost of the meal onto the counter and let Ayame take his arm, the two of them vanishing into the evening gloom.
Naruto stared after the pair. "Teuchi-san?" he asked thoughtfully. "Do you think that Ayame-chan likes Iruka-sensei?"
The old man growled. "That boy had better treat my little girl right, Naruto. You tell him that."
.oOo.
"So what's new?" Yugito asked Naruto the morning after his first D-rank mission. She'd been out of the village for the whole of the last day, delivering another report for the Raikage and then handling a small mission that had been refered to her. It hadn't been much - a 'turned' official in the Daimyo's court had managed to make himself more of a threat than a benefit to one of Kumo's spy networks inside of the Country of Fire and Yugito had been asked to ensure that the threat went away. He'd probably have a wonderful funeral at which no open mention would be 'recreational' substances found in his desk and by the autopsy after he fell off a rather high balcony.
"Kakashi-sensei's gotten in trouble," Naruto yawned, still curled up against Yugito under the covers. It wasn't really cold at the moment, but it was definitely the cooler season of Fire Country's annual weather cycle and between the blankets and shared bodywarmth, staying in bed was definitely feeling more welcoming that getting up for another long wait until his lazy sensei arrived. "I mentioned the Thousand Years of Pain to Iruka-sensei and he and Ayame complained to the Hokage - did you know that Ayame was Iruka-sensei's girlfriend? He never said anything to me - so now there's some sort of rule about jounin-sensei touching their genin and all the other jounin are mad at Kakashi-sensei."
"Is he mad at you?" Yugito asked. If Naruto's sensei turned against him then that would probably provide another lever towards distancing him from Konoha.
Naruto snuggled closer. "I dunno," he muttered drowsily. "Didn't seem any different yesterday than he was before. Same lazy jerk as ever and the mission was boring... 'm a ninja, shouldn't have to paint fences..."D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Re: Neko-Neechan - Valles - 03-02-2007
Oooooh. Shiny.
I'm way behind on my Naruto-manga - I think the last chapter I read was the one where Kabuto showed up again - so I can't really comment on Yugito's characterisation or that of the Hidden Cloud beyond saying that I think you've underestimated the relative, um, benevolence of the Leaf approach to the care and feeding of young ninja and that I like your Yugito in spite of that uneasiness.
That said, I'm looking forward to seeing whether Yugito seduces Naruto's loyalty or vice versa (my money's on the latter), and to her reaction once she gets a look at the real Sakura.
Then again, I'm a rabid Sakura fanboy, so that last is only to be expected.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"I'm terribly sorry, but I have to kill you quite horribly now."
Re: Neko-Neechan - Sirrocco - 03-02-2007
*is reading raptly*
This is really good. I'd love to see more.
Re: Neko-Neechan - Sweno - 03-02-2007
a delightful twist on the standard.
Of course I haven't read much of the manga, so comments on characterization are baseless.
Eagerly waiting for more.
-Terry
------
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
Re: Neko-Neechan - drakensis - 03-02-2007
Quote:Yugito has virtually no characterisation in the manga - she's killed off within pages of her first appearance.
I'm way behind on my Naruto-manga - I think the last chapter I read was the one where Kabuto showed up again - so I can't really comment on Yugito's characterisation or that of the Hidden Cloud beyond saying that I think you've underestimated the relative, um, benevolence of the Leaf approach to the care and feeding of young ninja and that I like your Yugito in spite of that uneasiness.
As written here, she's probably the most well-balanced of the three Jinchuriki shown - Hidden Cloud didn't have a Bijuu rampage to blame her for and she was trained up pretty much from birth by a carefully selected team to be a weapon for Kumo. By her lights, she lucked out and Naruto's gotten dumped on. Naruto would and will see things differently.
Quote:Thus far there have been no plotted interactions between the two, but if/when they do, Yugito's reaction to Sakura would probably be along the lines of: "What a nice civilian girl."
That said, I'm looking forward to seeing whether Yugito seduces Naruto's loyalty or vice versa (my money's on the latter), and to her reaction once she gets a look at the real Sakura.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Re: Neko-Neechan - Acyl - 03-03-2007
This is really, really good. The notion is a clever one, and it brings out the dynamics of Naruto's situation...very, very well. I'd like to see where you're going with this. o_o/
-- Acyl
hm - Foxboy - 03-03-2007
My only problem is with the reaction to the "Thousand Years of Pain." Said reaction is incredibly Eurocentric. If I understand my cultural references correctly, what Kakashi did was the rough equivalent of either an atomic wedgie or a wet willy. That is, gross and childish, not perverted... unless Naruto makes a comment on perversion from THAT specific thing in the raw source.
The big and obvious perversion that Kakashi has is his Icha-icha subscription.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
Thousand Years of Pain - Shirei - 03-03-2007
Yeah, apparently the whole "Kancho" thing is pretty popular with children, the "horror" stories of an American Teacher in Japan I read a while ago give a good account. outpostnine.com/editorial...her43.html
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - Florin - 03-03-2007
Quite interesting! I see that ANBU is up to it's usual standard of security. Unless of course the Hokage is already on to her, and is just letting her hang around until Naruto finishes counter-recruiting her, which I could totally see the wily old bastard doing.
A few typos:
Quote:and
I hear a cue when I hear one
Quote:I think you mean "In any event". Also, that paragraph felt a little confusing. You might want to swap it around so it mentions that she joined with a small group, then say how long it took her to get where she was going, since you mentioned it was only a two hour trip just a few lines before.
In the event it took her almost three hours
and
Quote:Forgot another "to" in there.
I had to do it O-jiji just to get him to use my photo
Also, you never really describe what Yugito looks like, or even what her age is, which makes the kissing scene slightly creepy. I think the only reference to her appearance is that she has blond hair.
And finally, Yugito's target list looks kinda large for one person to do all by their lonesome, especially if she's gonna try a grab some of them unwillingly.
Oh, and I have to agree with the Kancho thing as well. It would be considered childish, but not really perverted.--
"There are crazed martial artists out there looking to improve their skills and find inner peace through exterior violence!"
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - VladimirTherin - 03-03-2007
Is it that really just euro-centric?
Or is this just another case of japan being fucked in the head.
That link about the teacher blew my mind.
What I am trying to say is, I do no think "personal space" is just an occidental notion. Is it?
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - Acyl - 03-03-2007
It's a case of Japan being f--ked in the head.
My own cultural sensibilities are basically Chinese. Well, Singaporean Chinese. I act mostly like a Westerner, but there's...little things. F'example, I consider it perfectly acceptable to just give someone money for their birthday (provided they're younger than you, and that said money is in a red packet). I understand giving plain cash is terribly crass by other cultural standards. =)
I think the whole butt-poking thing is...well, er. Yeah. Rampant molestation, much? Most Chinese societies would agree. Malays and Indonesians would freak. Arab Muslims would freak even more. And so on...
I'm not sure whether it's a problem in the context of the story. We have no real idea how the Narutoverse considers such things... though I'd err on the side of ninja not batting an eyelid. I mean, this is a society that gives girls courtesan training, presumably, one steeped in violence and far more nasty forms of abuse. Then there's also Sakura's reaction to consider, in the canon anime episode. Haven't read the manga, but she seems more disturbed by the fact Kakashi dressed it up in such grandoise language...than the act itself.
All that said...
That doesn't really matter, since you've already written it, and it is funny. It's a take on the matter I've never seen a writer do before. If it's something you want to explore, and something you want to make a plot element of...
Go for it. Because it's cool.
It's fanfic. You're allowed to take liberties.
-- Acyl
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - Necratoid - 03-04-2007
I took the Hokage's reaction as being a reaction to Kakashi apparently trying to drive Naruto out of the village by being a stupid jerk. There are advantages of Naruto having the Hokage on his side so much.
Yes, the Japanese are screwed up but that is a large part of why they are so entertaining. Its like a nation that is train wreck T.V.. However, they arent the only ones with screwed up cultural things the youth does take English youth, who have come up with a new game that I believe is called 'Happy Slapping'. This consists of one guy coming up behind some random person at a dead run and pimp slapping the victim in the back of the head. Another person records the attack on a cell phone and they laugh at it and sometimes put it on the internet. Considering the shots I've seen this is much like thinking its funny to walk up behind someone at random and smacking them in the head with a baseball bat. Also, they sometimes do it in time with someone sipping hot coffee or so that the person takes a face first nose dive into the pavement. Biting your tongue hard is one of the better results for the victim. So the Japanese arent the only ones with screwed up habits. They are just experts at coming up with them.
Also, I've notice more and more reports coming out of Japan that make me think the Japanese women are taking the stance that I've heard of from random Australian women mostly through my brother's random online dealings and chats, but also in random places otherwise... Some of who are working on that ova fusion thing so they can eliminate Australian men from the reproductive cycle. Its not a feminist thing over there... its just virtually all their men are jerks and the women don't like them. Its not that they don't like men... its they don't like Australian men.
I've heard reports of the women only cars to prevent gropers. I've also heard that the Japanese women are increasingly not getting married... which is to the point the society is getting increasingly top heavy in age. So in a few decades Japan will have to start importing people that aren't Japanese or they are going to have a massive price drop in real-estate due to decrease demand.
Which is also why 'nice guys' end up with hoards of women chasing after them in anime... 'He is not a jerk or sleaze... such traits must be bred into the gene-pool.' reaction... I know that Ranma was this way, because it was written by a female. Someday I'll bother to research which are written by females trying to trick the male population into not being pricks... and which are copycats or parodies.
Relevant to Naruto, the first thing you have to realize is that the main reason Sasuke had all those fangirls in the first place is that the writer decided that Sasuke was his favorite character and as such needed perks. The one with the most reason to actually be in love/ a fangirl ofa person in the pre-genin class is Hinata... who likes Naruto because 1) he has confidence in himself regardless of the things that come his way and she wishes for that to rub off on her. 2) Naruto is not a pervert or a jerk. The rest of the girls all what Sasuke... which I think is in the same category as why they hate Naruto... parental input. The parents hate Naruto so the kids do... the parents want that spiffy bloodline, so the girls emulate this want. In otherwords: Sasuke's fangirls are just being tools, for their parents.
One way to look at Naruto is that this charisma power of Naruto's is in part Naruto not being a jerk. People are attracted to him not being a prick, despite the villagers best efforts to fix that. One of the things about Leaf is that its upper most leadership is trying to teach its people that wonderful revelation of Jesus' "Wouldn't it be great if people stopped being scum to each other and were nice and helpful on general principal for a change?"
Which is why Pedo-Snake-Sennin didnt get to be Hokage he sort of missed the memo that said treat the people of Leaf as family and dont form a dictatorship that cannonfodders its ninjas. Actually, he missed the memo that said if your must perform horrific experiments on people at least use people from enemy villages Lazy really.
Not that Mist is any better with its Bushido like genin entrance exam nothing inspires teamwork and long term bonds like having to kill one of you class mates at random in cold blood. Considering that the selection exam for genin finalists excluded a ninja trainee that could slaughter the entire selected class by himself. Then they get the bright idea to drive off or slaughter all there ninja families that have bloodline super powers There is a reason that random outcasts and ninja clans entered up forming Leaf in the first place. Which is probably why they have so many clans with bloodline, in the first place. The whole thing about not killing them off and giving them credit for their powers thing. Now if only the bloodlines clans could all get over themselves.
As for telling her to steal 8-15 ninjas through whatever means she can? The head Cloud ninja and /or institution apparently did tell her that they caught the guy, who kidnapped, Hinata, and unmasked him before executing him, regardless of diplomatic immunity rather than he got owned by a poke of death and then got unmasked. So Im guessing its a bizarrely complicated form of political assassination rather than expecting her to succeed. But hey if she does they get super ninjas genins and bloodlines so no real loss for Cloud.
Oh and the Hokage doesnt know she is there he kind of saw Naruto improving Sexy no Jutsu and decided it wasnt worth the risk spying on Naruto at home. Blood loss can kill you know.
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - VladimirTherin - 03-04-2007
"called 'Happy Slapping'."
I've seen a clip on youtube where they try this crap on some guy out on a walk with his girlfriend.
He was apparently a student at the local boxing-club.
3 seconds after he realizes one of them slapped his girl, he is kicking the crap out of them.
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - drakensis - 03-04-2007
> As for telling her to steal 8-15 ninjas through
> whatever means she can?
I really need to clarify this more I see. Yugito's primary mission is to recruit Naruto and failing that to steal him. As a secondary mission, she's been asked to evaluate the chances of recruiting/stealing various other young ninja, not to carry them off herself.
In and of itself not a bad idea: Sasuke and, to a lesser extent, Neji are good risks to recruit; Hinata and the Ino-Shika-Cho kids are reasonable capture prospects. All of these targets (plus some more) is overly-ambitious on the part of the Raikage, but at least there's marginally more thought being put into this than Gashir's little snatch and grab in the middle of a diplomatic mission.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - Necratoid - 03-04-2007
Considering the number of contingencies and the endless back up plans... All I can see is the Raikage dressed in green spandex and orange leggings talking like the Gai and clone. Also, considering that a rock girl showed up to seduce Naruto... do the Rock and Cloud heads have a bet going or something? Two girls in a week is a bit odd.
On a different note... does the title character have a lot of chakra on her own or does she main use her tenants or what? I was unclear on that. She just seems really kinda fused with demon. Gaara is in a master slave relationship due to his seal. While Naruto is oddly got me thinking of Naruto as a pimp and the Kyubi as his chakraa Ho... which is why why I'm stopping this before the post gets awkward.
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - ECSNorway - 03-05-2007
Well, it's entirely possible that she's just older and better-trained than Naruto...
I am liking this story a lot so far. Even if Sakura does get a bad rap, she seems to get that a lot. --
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - anowack - 03-06-2007
Quote:It's partially deserved in this context, as Sakura as of the very start of the series is indeed a very shallow person. The extent to which she remains shallow even as early as the beginning of the Wave Country arc, much less by the end of that arc is frequently heavily overplayed, in my opinion, but that's a different issue.
Even if Sakura does get a bad rap, she seems to get that a lot.
With regards to this particular story, I'd say that the bit about the red dress is just out of place in my opinion. I mean, Naruto goes through the entire series wearing primarily bright orange, and nobody in canon ever even mentions it, nor is Naruto or Sakura's clothing or hair coloration ever a factor in them getting spotted or not. The colors are a way for the main characters to stand out visually, not an in-story sign of their understanding or lack thereof of basic camouflage.
The bit with the "1000 Years of Pain" is similarly out of place, but others have already discussed that.
Naruto's assessment of Sakura after the bell test sounds out of character to me. Regardless of one's opinion about its accuracy, it isn't really like Naruto to be so negative about anyone, much less Sakura.
The bit with Yugito and Naruto kissing is a bit... eww, considering that she's an adult and he's twelve.
*shrug* Looking back up, my comments are rather more negative-sounding than I intended. This isn't a bad story; it's well written and constructed. It just hits some of my pet peeves.
Aaron Nowack
Aaron Nowack
Re: Thousand Years of Pain - Necratoid - 03-06-2007
Quote:The color of your outfit is mostly irrelivant really for a Naruto ninja... one henge and the problem is gone. However it does make you stand out more, which can make you a target. Also, Naruto has a llllooootttt of experience in dodging hostile forces and hiding in bright orange. He picks taunts ANBU and dodges ANBU squads pre-series. Additionally most ninja probablely think of Naruto and Sakura as being in their clan outfits. Like Kiba and the Worship my magic eyes clans.
The colors are a way for the main characters to stand out visually, not an in-story sign of their understanding or lack thereof of basic camouflage.
As for the kiss thing, I considered that part of cat close to the surface deal. For the cat this is able getting literally the most powerful thing known (barring things that show up in the second manga series)... Stake your claim early. Which eplains a lot of her actions really. I think Naruto was doing the thing kids do and do stuff, because no one told them better.
On the down on Sakura thing... I'd agree with it being odd, for Naruto to react that way. Probably part of shippers syndrome where other possible pairings are smacked down through Authorial fiat.