The Open Horizon
A Game
Shisui and Tenzo depart the next morning. She and Kakashi are best at long-distance tracking, as Tenzo’s seed technique will only work for two days before degrading - so they are the ones who will follow behind. It’s for the best, really. Naruto’s ribs need to be rebroken and set, preferably within the next day.
She informs Kakashi of such, and his eyebrows creep towards his hairline.
“How long ago was this?”
“The fight with the Iwa-nin. I didn’t notice until yesterday that they hadn’t set properly.”
It’s not the first time she’s reset her own bones, far from it. She’d learned quickly to avoid doctors whenever possible, and had taken to performing first aid and occasionally, minor surgeries on the floor of her bathroom, alone. But it is the first time she’s had an audience in three, nearly four years.
“Do you need help?”
She nearly tells him no, I’ll do it myself. Then she thinks better of it.
“Can you lay out my bedroll?”
Naruto rummages in her pack for their first aid kit, finding an unused roll of support bandages. She won’t need more than an hours’ rest, but she’ll be sore for at least a day, if not longer. Today, she can feel it, the ache in her ribs, the protesting of poorly-aligned muscle and bone.
Kakashi has laid out her bedroll when she looks up. She wants, really, to send him away. To deal with this herself. She wants to wait until she can lay down on her cold bathroom tiles in peace. It was base, animalistic, this need to hide when she was injured. Kabuto had once gone through an entire veterinary text while sitting on her bedroom floor.
Your basal temperature averages at 101.7, he’d said, pushing his glasses up his nose. Much more like a canid than a human.
She’d curled her lips back and snarled at him.
And you show your teeth when you’re afraid, he’d said, unshakeable. He’d seen more frightening things than a twelve-year-old newly minted chunin.
Naruto doesn’t like to think about Kabuto, most days.
She unwraps her obi with stiff movements. She’d dressed and undressed in relative privacy yesterday evening and this morning, leaving few opportunities for her teammates to notice. She lays down, slipping out of her kimono and rucking her hadagi up over her stomach. She’s intensely glad that she’d succumbed to the kunoichi habit of wearing her sports bra under all clothing, kimono included.
“I can do it myself,” she says, “I’ve done it before.”
“How often?” she doesn’t like his tone. It’s not angry, or accusing, just - blank. The tone he uses when he wants more information, and doesn’t want to upset her.
“Often enough,” instinctively, her lips curl back.
Slowly, carefully, she feels her ninth rib, mentally calculating how much force she’ll need to use. Hot tears prick at her eyes. It’s always so, so difficult - it’s hard not to pull back, to get it right the first time. She always gets it, in the end, but -
Naruto presses her hands against her eyes, frustrated.
“Can you do it?” she whispers.
Kakashi kneels by her and hovers, uncertain. “I’m not a medic. I could make it worse.”
“It’s hard to do by myself,” she admits, every word having to be dragged out of her.
“Okay, okay. You’ll have to walk me through it.”
Naruto breathes in through her nose and counts to three.
“It’s the ninth and tenth ribs on my left side. You’ll need to find where the break was, first,” she says.
There’s a pause. “Naruto,” he says cautiously, “I can see it.”
Oh, fuck. Is it that bad? She hadn’t looked too hard at it, yesterday, in the hot spring. Unbidden, her face heats up.
“Then it should be easy to find. Go on,” she adds, when he fails to move. “Use two fingers, like you’re going to form a ram seal.”
She has to try very, very hard not to scramble away from him. Tensing hurts her ribs, even as she forces her body to be still.
“Don’t use too much force, or you actually will make it worse,” she grits out. “When I first started - I’d increase the pressure bit by bit so I wouldn’t accidentally puncture a lung or something.”
He has two fingers on her tenth rib. Naruto closes her eyes. “Warn me when you’re ready,” she says.
“Okay,” he says, after a moment, “On three - one, two -” he starts to exert pressure on two .
God, it hurts. She grinds her teeth together as the pressure mounts, the delicate web of muscles holding her ribs in place screaming in agony. Then the bone cracks, breaks, and she can’t help the howl that builds in the back of her throat.
The second one is worse, and Kakashi actually grabs her shoulders, pinning her down in a flash to stop her bolting away. Her legs are still free, but she has just enough rational thought left to stop herself kicking him off.
She doesn’t have to ask him to let her go. And - she can’t ask him to help her wrap her ribs, she can’t.
He’s used to her idiosyncrasies, by now, moving away until Naruto finishes wrapping her torso. The bones will heal in a few hours at most, and be sore for a while longer. Kakashi returns a moment later with a wet cloth - the scarf she’d stolen to tie up her hair.
She’s intensely grateful as she presses the cloth over her face, the cold water making her feel more - stable. Like she isn’t about to run, or cry, or fight.
“How often does this happen?”
“I don’t know what you mean, senpai,” she answers, tone blank. Drop it, she wants to snarl. Or perhaps: It’s not your business.
“Keeping secrets will only harm the team in the long run,” he says, and Naruto nearly bursts into hysterical laughter.
“Because everyone on this team has been so open and honest with me,” she bites back. “Don’t - don’t ask for things you don’t want to know.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry.”
Naruto’s sorry, too, for a great many things.
“Why don’t we trade? Question for question?”
An old game from the days when she’d not trusted any of them one whit. A game that had gotten her to admit, more than once, that she had committed treason. It was part of the rules: answers were secret.
“Okay,” she says, at length. “You can go first.”
“How often does this happen?” he repeats.
Naruto actually has to stop and think, trying to tally nights spent on the bathroom floor and evenings spent pouring over medical texts.
“Just after I started training as a field medic, I realised that there were some - issues, I guess, with the way I healed. My fingers hadn’t set right, so a friend reset them for me at home. And once I knew more about how emergency care was supposed to work, I realised - they weren’t treating me normally. Always taking blood, always poking and prodding. It was better to just handle it myself.”
It’s not the whole story, not exactly. But every word of it is true.
The Open Road
Naruto waits two days to ask her own question. She wants time to think, to consider - she doesn’t doubt he’ll give an answer as true and untrue as her own.
They’re half a days’ walk from joining back up with Shisui and Tenzo when she asks, “Why was I picked to join Team Ro?”
Kakashi visibly flinches, and she knows she’s got him.
“We were down a member,” he hedges, which is both true and absolute bullshit. “You showed a lot of promise.”
“Plenty of ANBU teams function as three-man units,” she moderates her tone to be contemplative rather than accusatory. “And I showed promise - as a genin, maybe. I could have taken the graduation exam that year, gone onto a squad with a jonin sensei. Jiji wanted me to feel special, I think, wanted me close.”
It’s an ugly truth about the Sandaime, one that she’s never really given voice to. When she became a field medic, she had also become one of Konoha’s mandatory reporters, and had had to sit through lecture after lecture on recognising child abuse. She had felt - and looked - ridiculous, a ten-year-old in a room full of grown adults.
Grooming was a process designed to isolate a child from their peers, to reinforce dependence on an adult, and to normalise and escalate abuse. For whatever reason, she had come to realise, the Sandaime had wanted her isolated from her peers, isolated from adults who could have bonded with her, and dependent on him for money, shelter, affection. The worst part of it is that Naruto doesn’t hate him for it, even now.
“He did,” Kakashi says, softly, “After - after Itachi left the team, there was an uproar. There was a fear that some clan would take notes from what the Uchiha tried to do, take you hostage. I didn’t know all of this at the time, I pieced it together a while after - Shimura wanted you in Ne, Utatane and Mitokado wanted you out of the Academy, in private tutelage, and the Sandaime wanted you to stay on the normal shinobi career path. A compromise was reached, I think.”
That’s not what I asked, she wants to say. I asked why I was picked for this team. But these are the rules: they don’t question the answers given, so long as they are true.
They reach the caravan in the evening. Naruto lets Kakashi do most of the talking - kunoichi may be, on paper, equal to shinobi, but things work very differently outside the ninja world. Naruto ends up helping the other women cook dinner. Chatter flows easily between them, and Naruto is quick to memorise their names, where they’re from. Hanako, from the far, far north of Earth Country, freshly married into a merchant family. Hibiki, who had one toddler and another baby on the way, from Sound Country. Megumi, Nao, Emi, Yuna.
All of them except for Hanako have children, ranging from nearly-adult to practically born yesterday. They’re not surprised she doesn’t have children, Yuna asking “Just married, eh?” and Naruto blushes and nods shyly. She doesn’t even have to fake the embarrassment.
Yori and Ume are from Fire Country, near the border with Rain. They married three months ago, and had travelled to Earth Country to visit distant, elderly relatives who had gotten stuck on the other side of the border after the war ended. This particular group was travelling to the border with Waterfall, where they’d peel off and head in different directions.
Most ninja hate undercover work. Naruto doesn’t mind it - with her whisker marks hidden under concealer and her hair hidden under a practical covering, she feels like a different person. It’s easy to not meet Shisui’s eyes when she hands him a bowl of rice and curry, eyes on the ground, demure and unassuming. It’s easier to slink back to Yori’s side in the evening.
October 10, Year 81 A.K.
Naruto’s birthday is today - her sixteenth. She finds out quite by accident, from the date on a sewing catalogue that had been printed yesterday and picked up at a halfway-house to the border.
It shouldn’t be very upsetting. She knew she would be spending her birthday in the field when her team was sent to Earth Country, and probably Shisui’s as well, coming just a little over a week after hers. They’d planned to celebrate when they got back - and they’d gone out for Kakashi’s birthday just before they left Konoha.
That evening, she and Kakashi break away from the group to make camp. Not far - they can still see the smoke from the central campfire and hear the hum of voices. They’re both tucked securely into their respective blankets when Naruto rolls to face him and whispers, “It’s my birthday.”
“Happy birthday,” he whispers back. “Now go to sleep.”
They lie in silence for all of a few moments before he speaks again. “I got you a present, back in Konoha. But I don’t think you’ll be able to use it.”
Naruto fights the urge to wiggle with excitement, curling her toes under the blanket. Getting presents is still thrilling to her, even after six years of steady birthday presents and little trinkets deposited into her apartment. “What did you get me?”
“Tickets to the kabuki theatre performance in November. I thought we would be back in time.”
Naruto loves kabuki theatre. She loves the bold, colourful makeup, the costumes, the dancing. She’d practically screamed when, during the very first performance she ever saw, an actor floated towards the crowd. Jiji had explained afterwards that it was just a trick, done with wires - but it had seemed like magic to her.
Shisui and Tenzo give her - practical things. Books and teacups and clothes and kunai polish. Kakashi gives her things that are just for her.
“I would have loved to go,” she says. Maybe they still can, after this is done.
“I know. That’s the point of presents. Unless you would rather I got you something you hated? A crate of raw peas, perhaps?”
Naruto hits him with her pillow and rolls over with a huff.
As a Grave
On her belly in the dirt, she listened to the earth tear itself apart, felt the ground shake underneath her.
There was no way this wooden dome could protect them. No way it could hold through the weight of the world bearing down on it. But it did, and Naruto didn’t die. Above them, the earth finally went quiet, rocks shifting on top of each other and then grinding to a standstill. The only light came from the burning red of the sharingan, hovering above her.
“Everyone alright?” Tenzo’s voice was strained.
“All breathing,” Shisui answered back.
“Senpai, can you help me …?”
Hound couldn’t, as it turned out, help. There was rustling in the dark, and then a cry of pain.
“Keep calm, don’t talk,” Shisui murmured. Naruto did her best to obey.
“Can’t mold chakra,” came a voice in the dark, “it burns.”
Tenzo swore under his breath, and the earth shifted again. She couldn’t see, couldn’t feel what was going on, the air choked with dust.
It was agonizing, the waiting. With every groan and shift of rubble she was sure they would be buried alive. Her head was hazy and her breathing shallow by the time a sliver of blue light trickled down to them, illuminating Tenzo’s pale face and outstretched hands. Shisui’s grip on her arms was tight, hauling her underneath what she now realised was an opening, a long, narrow shaft going all the way to the surface.
Shisui boosted her up into the shaft and told her to climb.
She couldn’t feel her chakra, from whatever Shisui had done to her. Twice, she tumbled back down, never falling more than a few feet before Shisui caught her. Without her chakra, her body didn’t work right: her fingers didn’t respond in time to her commands, failing to grip where she told them to. She cut her shin on a rock, and it kept bleeding.
Naruto had never felt more alone in her life. Everything around her was dead, still, silent - she had been surprised, genuinely surprised the first time she had fell backwards and been caught. She hadn't known there was anyone behind her, anyone waiting to catch her if she fell.
Hauling herself up over the edge felt like emerging from a grave. Shisui’s pale face followed a moment after, joining her in the open air, under the stars. Hound emerged a minute later, more or less dragged to the surface by Tenzo. For a long moment, they laid under the dark night sky together, panting.
It was Shisui who broke the silence.
“What do we do now?”
October 10, Year 75 A.K.
“C’mon sensei, unlock the chain,” Jiraiya said. “Unless you don’t want to come in, of course.”
There was a pause, and Jiraiya’s face grew dead serious. A key was passed over the doorway, and the manacle unlocked. Jiraiya was remarkably gentle when removing it, didn’t react to the mess she knew she’d made of her ankle.
Her jiji was in the corridor outside. Jiraiya’s hand was on her shoulder, and he steered her through the door of her cell. It felt like pushing through water, to leave the cell.
It was only Jiraiya’s firm grip that kept her on her shaky legs, pushing past the Hokage like he wasn’t even there. He didn’t try to speak with her. She thought that if he had, she would have started screaming again.
Waking up from a deep sleep in a tiny room, it had been easy to forget - to make herself forget - that someone had put her there. She wondered if he had sent a subordinate to do it, or if he had closed the manacle around her himself. He’d had the key, after all.
A moment later, she was handed off to Kakashi, who’d said, “ I’ll get her home,” before taking her by the arm and guiding her through the maze of tunnels that run deep under Konoha.
They didn’t give Naruto her shoes back, or her kunai, or anything else they’d taken. The dirt floor was damp and slippery under her feet, and Kakashi had to catch her three times when she slipped on the stairs.
Naruto was alive again, burning up with chakra. It thrummed under her skin and pooled, heavy, in her ankle, along her forearms, her face. In her belly, she could feel something unfurling, waking up.
By the time they were standing in front of her apartment, Naruto was shaking, head to toe. After so long in complete isolation, being in the village was too much, too much. She could barely focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Kakashi had a key to her apartment, somehow, steering her inside and depositing her in one of her two chairs.
A cup of tea was set down in front of her, then a takeout bowl of - Ichiraku’s?
“Hokage-sama said it might make you feel better,” he said, by way of explanation.
“Is that - is a bowl of ramen supposed to make it better?” she demanded, her voice raising in pitch and anger with every word. A rage not entirely hers crashed through her, and she stood, abruptly.
“Calm down, Naruto,” came the order, and she wanted to scream again.
Something awful reared its head inside her. It felt like the kyubi, it felt like the ugly thoughts that she tried so hard to push down.
Make them pay, the ugly thing insisted.
Make them pay.
“Get the fox under control, or I’ll have to.”
It was the threat that did it, turning her rage into fear in the blink of an eye. Naruto bolted.
She made it as far as her bedroom when she realised what a stupid idea it had been, Hound hot on her heels behind her. She couldn’t run, couldn’t hide, so she dove for her bedside table, fingers fumbling on the stiff wooden drawer. She whirled around, kunai in hand, only to find him holding his hands up in the doorway.
His sharingan glittered. Naruto wanted to stab him right in his eye, red and shining like a jewel.
“Don’t look at me!”
She wasn’t sure who said it, the words hers and not hers all at once.
“Okay,” he said placidly, closing the eye. “Is that better?”
Naruto was shaking again, so violently she thought she might drop the kunai.
“Don’t - don’t -” she stammered, “Don’t make me - don’t take away my -” she gasped for air. “I thought I was dying. I couldn’t tell if any of you were real.”
Fat, hot tears rolled down her face. She was so tired of crying.
“It must have been very frightening,” the same placating tone, like she was a wild animal he was trying to trick. “Naruto, put the kunai down, it’s over now.”
But it’s not, it’s not over. She could still feel it, still remember the way it had only taken one look from Shisui’s red, red eyes for her entire world to go dark and silent and still.
“You have to promise,” she demanded, “You have to promise you won’t ever do that to me.”
“I promise. Please put the kunai down, Naruto.”
“You have to mean it,” she said, tone edging on hysterical.
“I promise,” he said, more slowly. “I won’t use the sharingan on you.”
“Promise me you won’t ever make me go back there.”
“I promise to do everything in my power to prevent you from going back.”
Naruto searched his face, his body language, his chakra for signs of deception, and found none. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She laid the kunai down on her dresser.
“You’ll feel better after you shower and eat. Try not to do anything stupid.”
Naruto could do that.
He turned and left, perhaps sensing her overwhelming need to hide away, in that moment. With the bedroom door closed, Naruto felt the tension bleed out of her, all that will to fight leaving like so much dust in the wind. She was so very tired.
In the bathroom, she caught sight of herself in the mirror, a hollow-eyed, skinny thing. Then she jerked back, scrambling away from herself.
Her eyes were red. Red like the sharingan, red like a demon’s, red like blood.
She clamped her hands over her eyes and refused to look. When she stepped out of the shower, clean for the first time in an age, her eyes were the same blue they always were. Naruto wondered if she had imagined it, if the cell had made her finally lose her mind.
Hound hadn’t left the apartment, was still in the kitchen. When she ventured out of her bedroom, dressed in her favorite orange hoodie, the one she used to wear nearly every day to the Academy, the ramen was gone, replaced with a bowl of miso soup. She didn’t know where he had gotten the tofu, or the scallions - she had made sure there was nothing perishable in her fridge before she had left.
Naruto managed three pieces of tofu and a few spoonfuls of broth before she couldn’t continue, feeling at once too full and completely empty.
Kakashi took the bowl away without Naruto having to say anything, and she watched him fuss about her tiny kitchen, filling her sink with soapy water and scrubbing her saucepan with more zeal than was perhaps necessary.
Then he was gasping, hand on chest, and Naruto was on her feet.
For a long, horrible moment, she was back on the floor of the outpost, crawling through blood and bodies and broken glass to be by his side.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he gasped. “It’s been getting - better.”
Naruto wrung the hem of her hoodie between her hands. “What’s wrong?” she said, her voice sounding whiny and childish even to her own ears.
“Chakra burns, from -” he broke off. “You saved me, Naruto.”
“I hurt you,” I used a demon’s power to hurt you, she thought, the words hanging heavy in the air between them.
“What could you have done? You’re not a medic-nin.”
Naruto shook her head. She didn’t know what she could have done. Anything else, anything but this.
The Open Horizon
Kakashi left with a promise to be back the next day at noon. She tried to sleep, but couldn’t, head buzzing from the flood of information that came from living in the centre of Konoha’s most densely populated district.
Wrapped in her comforter, Naruto sat on her balcony. It was later at night than she’d thought, the sky in the east beginning to change from black to blue. But the world below her crappy apartment building wasn’t nearly as still or as quiet as it ought to be - orange paper lanterns glimmered like stars in the night. She could hear a group of men singing, somewhere in the distance, drunk and happy. She recognised the tune - they were singing about the brave Yondaime, who’d slain a demon and sacrificed his life for them all.
I’m right here, she found herself thinking. I’m right here.
And when she fell asleep, she dreamed of Shun.