eight.
“He graduated?”
“Already?”
“Those Uchiha are on a different level!”
“Graduating in the first year?”
“Is another war coming?”
“Are they gonna graduate us all early?”
“He’s the top rookie of the year! Makes sense to me!”
Ei nudged Kaho with her elbow as they walked down the hall, gesturing to the not so quiet whisperers everywhere.
“The Uchiha Heir took the test early and graduated. Uchiha Itachi.” Kaho answers.
Students loitered around class doors and in halls, everyone talking all about the famous Uchiha Itachi.
“That boy in the year below us in Class 4.”
“The one who was on the field before he even got to the academy?”
“That smart jerk who always sat in the back?”
Why would anyone need to graduate so fast? Ei is slightly worried, fast graduations meant they were running out of bodies for the ranks. There were kids who never came back to the orphanage after becoming genin, and the wide hole left behind in the older age group was still felt clearly.
“Kaho-kun, do you think there will be another war?” Ei asks quietly as they both enter their own classroom.
Once they sit down Kaho answers with a shake of her head, “I don’t think so, I haven’t heard anything like that from my parents. They haven’t been on any more missions than normal.” Kaho doesn’t seem too worried about it, keeping a cool attitude.
“My tutor Susuki-san went on a big mission recently, and she hasn’t been back yet.” Ei had been kinda worried about it actually.
One of the girls who sits in the row ahead of Ei and Kaho turns around with her hands on her hips. “No way there’s gonna be another war! My papa works in T an’ I idiot! He’d definitely know if Iwa was making trouble!”
“Your papa’s a paper-pusher Nana! He wouldn’t know anything!” A boy across the room shouts. Nana stands up in a rush and marches over to his desk. Ei filters out the bright annoyed chakra from that side of the room and ignores those two.
“Maybe he just got tired of dealing with these civilians, I’d graduate early too if I could get away from these fools.” Someone in the front says in a huff. An angry shout rises from Ryuusei, “Don’t bad mouth Itachi-sama Hirahito! He’s the clan heir, unlike you from a branch house, Hyuuga .”
Ei and Kaho share a look. They both decided that it wasn’t worth paying attention to. “Did you finish that hand sign's memorization packet? I can help you study Ei-kun.” Kaho pulls out her stapled packet from her bag.
“Yes. I was able to get most of it done.”
Renji-sensei’s amused chakra approaches and enters the room, “I see the class is very torn up today.”
Heads whip towards him in a rush to get him to answer their question first.
“Well since you are all so fired up about it i’ll just go ahead and clarify!” He says cheerfully as he enters. “Itachi-kun graduated at seven because the Hokage allowed it, he is very skilled and it was determined he would benefit from becoming a genin early.”
He points to an eager Shota, “No, you cannot graduate early too.”
Points to Tomoko’s raised hand, “No, there is not a war happening. One border skirmish won’t break four years of peace.”
Finally he points to Ryuusei and Hirahito who look like they were in a competition to raise their hands higher than the other, “No one is insulting either of your clan’s honor, sit down and hush.”
Shota from the first row raises his hand again. “No Shota, you cannot try to graduate early because you are a year above Itachi. You will graduate in your 4th year like everyone else. That goes for all of you. Hokage-dono put the age at twelve for a reason.” Shota lowers his hand.
Renji eyes everyone in the class one by one. “Is that everything? I don’t want to hear of any of you tracking down the boy and harassing him.”
A chorus of yes’s comes back with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Ei can’t help but think that Uchiha-sama’s life would be a lonely one.
Renji writes on the chalkboard in big bold strokes so there would be no mistake in what it said. Once he is sure he has everyone’s attention, he raps the board with his knuckles.
“Since the rumor about an early graduate couldn’t be kept quiet for a single day, today will be a special lesson on Information Gathering.”
The price tag humbly displays a price of 340,000 ryo. Ei has never so much as seen that much money in her life. It’s like she can hear her wallet crying.
Ei warily turns to Shiki and pats her side. When the woman turns from where she was watching Kaho-kun being fitted in a new wool kimono with dark blue damask patterned dragonflies.
“That’s way too expensive.” Ei sniffs, gesturing to the yellow patterned silk with gold embroidery on display.
“Is it? Kaho-kun’s entire ensemble is only 56,000 ryo.” Shiki says, her chakra dancing in mischief. “You are sure I can’t convince you to allow us to buy you a kimono outfit?”
Ei side eyes the price tag and turns away from it to look at the sensible and normal designs. She taps her foot.
“Way too much.”
Ei likes shopping. Ei loves discounts and deals and finding sneaky ways to use coupons to make her grocery shopping practically free. Ei doesn’t mind at all that Shiki-san is renting a festival kimono for her, but the fact that something that expensive even exists just to be worn only on autumn festivals is an affront to Ei.
Shiki-san nods her head to Ei respectfully, “I completely understand,” she points to a maple leaf kimono hung so that the embroidered tori gates and garden scenes can be displayed, “is that one more to your tastes?”
Ei looks at the beautiful kimono. It doesn’t even have a price listed it so expensive. Kaho laughs softly at her, Naruto outright shrieks in laughter at the face Ei makes.
“No.”
Ei ends up finding a cheerful bright red with cascading printed maple leaves, and a light green checker obi. It doesn’t cost much to rent, and it came with a discount since the hem was a little damaged. The tailor insists on renting an obi as well, because it would be ‘a shame for a girl of her age to be without an obi at a festival’. She can just wear the shinobi sandals she got for the Academy since Konoha falls aren’t really cold enough for tabi socks in her opinion, and Kaho promises to let Ei borrow some obi cords the next day.
Ei loves deals but when it comes to Naruto, Ei is willing to splurge. Only the finest for her otouto. She sees the most adorable light green ubugi with yellow and orange hopping toads. Its the most adorable thing she’s ever seen and she knows she needs to buy it. It’ll match the rest of the patterned t-shirts and pajamas that keep showing up in boxes on her doorstep. Shiki-san laughs at the patterns and buys it right then, and Ei doesn’t even feel bad about it. Naruto will grow but the ubugi can be adjusted to fit as he grows, and it should still be wearable for him until he reaches 2 years old as long as it doesn’t become stained beyond repair. Ei knows it’s extremely frivolous to get a printed kimono for a baby but its the most amazing this she’s ever seen.
Susuki-san happily shells out even more ryo to get a picture taken. They visit a photo shop near the weaving district to get a picture taken of Ei wearing her festival kimono and Naruto in his cheerful ubugi. Civilians don’t usually have access to cameras, and they can be expensive even for shinobi. So most people take pictures at photo shops, whether it be passport photos or shichi-go-san pictures. Ei and Naruto say goodbye, or ‘Bai’ in Naruto’s case, and return triumphant to their apartment.
Ei’s photo is placed on the shelf where she keeps workbooks, so she can see it from wherever she is in the apartment. Naruto’s ubugi is folded and carefully wrapped in washi paper and placed in the closet where dust won’t get to it.
“Your birthday is the day of the Festival tomorrow, Naruto.” Ei informs the baby as she settles him into a booster chair at their kitchen table. She’s tired from the shopping spree today so her dinner is a bowl of chazuke with the leftover salmon from yesterday on top. Naruto gets a cup of yogurt and cut pieces of persimmon.
Naruto blinks once, very slowly. “Ahbab.”
“That’s very true!” Ei smiles brightly at Naruto and pats his head. She’s very proud that Naruto is learning good speaking habits from her, Hisako approves of the pauses as well. Ei hadn’t told anyone but, she doesn’t really wait for Naruto to reply when she talks at home. Hes always babbling and making sounds so Ei just speaks like she is talking to herself. One of the books she read said babies learn to talk by hearing other people talk. According to Hisako-san his ‘motor skills’ are behind for his age, but Ei thinks he’s a great baby. Might be because Hisako-san doesn’t see Naruto very often.
“On the festival we can go out and see what it’s all about together, I heard Nami from school say that there will be fire displays!” Ei says excitedly. She would love to see the Uchiha fire displays, great big glowing dragons and butterflies made of the tiniest embers.
“Will that be a fun birthday?”
“Yah!” Naruto usually said ‘yes’ to every question he was asked so that didn’t mean much, but he was happy anywhere he was so she felt it was safe to assume it was a yes.
Water-over-rocks flared their chakra slightly in a greeting pattern. These days Ei usually tuned out people’s signatures so she wasn’t overwhelmed while she was relaxing, but she opened her senses and responded in kind.
A knock came from her window. That hadn’t happened before. The lock rattled and Ei watched the window open from the outside as the woman she had called previously called riverbank in the Konoha morse code crawled in. Ei didn’t want to call the mask creepy but it kind of was, it was a very intense looking crane mask. If Ei hadn’t seen the window open she never would have noticed, Crane kept her chakra so close she was practically invisible to Ei. Naruto hadn’t noticed a strange woman climb into his home and continued to happily make a mess of his yogurt cup.
There weren’t many people who guarded Naruto-chan so Ei made an effort to try and see all of their masks and put a name to their ‘faces’. Water-over-rocks was now assigned to Crane-san in her mind.
“Crane-san?” Ei bowed with a nod of her head towards the kunoichi in confusion.
Crane did not return the bow, instead standing in the middle of the room. “You will have a visitor soon.”
The masked woman stared dead at her. That didn’t really clarify things for Ei at all. The woman’s chakra is still held too closely for Ei to tell what she is thinking. From what Ei remembered from the fevered night, Crane was a kind if very awkward person.
“Thank you?”
Naruto finally notices the stranger and waves his hands at Crane in an enthusiastic hello. The kunoichi raises a hand in greeting quickly.
Ei decides to ignore the shinobi in her home, made easy by the fact that Crane’s chakra is suppressed. She could probably still figure out what Crane is feeling but Susuki-san says it’s rude to peak on other people’s emotions in a casual situation if they are specifically trying to hide them. Ei cleans Naruto’s sticky hands and deems his current outfit to be suitable enough to meet whatever ‘visitor’ will be here. After putting her dishes away in the cabinets that were steadily filling with collectable cat-theme kitchen wares she settles onto the couch with Naruto to wait.
With a sideways glance at Crane still standing in the middle of the room she opens up her senses all the way and sends a low pulse looking for human level chakra signatures. Information rushes back, her neighbors are settling in for the evening, someone has friends over, her landlord is surprised by something, Naruto’s second guard has moved to the roof two floors above her, someone is happy, and there is a new person in the lobby.
Probably her visitor, Ei doesn’t want to brush up against their chakra so she just watches it fascinated by its appearance. She’s never seen anything else like it, there's a firm mature aspect to it, no dominant emotions are tainting the chakra, yet the chakra shifts from yellow to blue, purple to red, stormy winds and muddy waters and embers. Its amazing to behold, and there are muted signatures around it that Ei recognizes as the kind of chakra the Anbu have.. As It makes its up further Ei can see that it is male, and definitely older. She watches it ascend the stairs until it reaches her door, Crane dashes forward before Ei can even move Naruto from her lap.
Ei’s jaw drops open when the door swings open. The old man before her is the Sandaime Hokage. The old man shuffles forward, his beige robes swishing around him but no hat on revealing graying brown hair and the start of age spots.
He smiles and the lines of his face crinkle around his eyes and mouth. “Hello Ei, i’ve come to talk to you about some things.”
Ei hurriedly moves Naruto to her hip and bows deeply at the waist, “Hokage-dono! I-” She snaps her jaw shut and counts to three. Her hair covers her horrified expression at speaking too quickly as she bows. She quickly runs over what you’re supposed to say to important people when they visit.
“I’m honored to host- gre- meet you Sandaime Hokage-dono. What do you wish to, spea-discuss?” Ei eventually manages to scramble her words into an acceptable sentence, straightening from her bow quickly and trying to fix her face into something like the calm face Hisako-san uses when she talks to rich people. Naruto holds his arms out to the new person, eager to greet a potential new friend. This is insane! She’s only seen the Hokage once, and only from a distance at the academy acceptance ceremony. She realizes that the strange chakra around him is because she has never met a shinobi this old before, it was so weird to feel mature chakra that was still so vibrant and fluid. There is something incredibly strange about having the Hokage in all his splendor in her tiny apartment.
The Sandaime Hokage enters as Crane closes the door behind him. He smiles kindly at the terrified looking girl and raises a hand to gesture towards her tiny kitchen table.
”May I sit here Ei?”
She nods quickly. The Hokage knows my name. The Hokage knows my name.
She sits with Naruto held firmly in her lap, and the Hokage sits in her rickety tiny kitchen chair. Ei never had thought that there was anything wrong with her kitchen or her chairs until the strongest ninja in the village sat down in her kitchen.
Figuring that the girl was too shell shocked to say anything Hiruzen starts.
“You may remember that I was the one who delivered little Naruto-kun to the orphanage, I took the liberty of paying for his living expenses.”
“Expenses?...” She says faintly.
“Yes, Naruto’s food and clothes, house, and his eventual shinobi education. It’s all in an account to be used when needed. When you moved here Naruto to this place, I added your name to the account so you could organize the money as needed.”
The phrase ‘fully furnished’ comes to mind first. Then her many ‘responsible’ cat-themed purchases. The realization that she bought a ceramic cat statue with the Hokage’s money comes third.
Oh sage.
She realizes that she has been staring blankly at the Hokage’s forehead. Naruto is talking, his babbling way of saying hello, hi, please hug me, who are you and the like.
“Thank you.” She finally manages.
“May I hold him?”
Ei can’t find a reason to deny her darling brother another person to hold him when so few people would even look at him. She stands and passes Naruto to the Hokage who easily settles the boy in his arms despite his wisened look. Ei stands at his elbow just in case he gets tired because he is a rather old looking man.
“He’s grown well! He will be twelve months old tomorrow won’t he?” The sandaime easily takes the baby’s exploration of his face. Ei is relieved that she thought to clean his hands.
Ei counts to two in her head. “He will.”
Naruto looks right into his face and says, “Nam?”
“That is the Sandaime Hokage; Sarutobi Hiruzen.” She answers.
Ei’s hand jolts forward in an aborted movement to stop Naruto from slapping the Sandaime Hokage in his face. He smiles wryly over Naruto’s head, “That’s quite a mouthful for a young man isn’t it?” He leans his head back to make eye contact with Naruto, “Just Ji-Ji would suffice Naruto.”
“JI!” Naruto declares proudly and settles his little arms around his new friend’s neck.
“Um. Is that.” Ei starts but stops when the Hokage turns his eye on her. He looks very kind but his chakra is so intimidating it stops her in her tracks, snapping her jaw shut.
“I don’t mind at all if Naruto here calls me Ji-ji, the Sandaime Hokage is only a title after all.”
Ei has met her limit for being surprised today, the Hokage is in her house and wants to be called Ji-ji.
“I’ll be straightforward Ei, Naruto was placed in my care by his parents, but my duties to the village have to come before one child. I’m very grateful that he has a kind sister like you to care for him.”
Ei swallows drily, “Thank you, Ho- Sir. I will care for Naruto-chan as best as I can.” She figures that if Naruto is happy in the Hokage’s arms then she can sit again.
He acknowledges her promise with a nod. “You may remember what I said on the Academy’s opening day. The Will of Fire is a trait I look for in my shinobi, and I’m glad to see it burn brightly in you. That need to protect your loved ones exists in all Konoha’s people, but when you become a shinobi that need will extend to your entire village.” His chakra burns brightly and his gaze weighs heavy on Ei.
“That means that as Hokage, I have to protect my village. You can’t bring Naruto to the festival.” He says firmly.
What? Her shock must show on her face because he continues. “There are many who would seek to harm Naruto.”
She looks at Otter-san still standing by her couch. She taps twice on her knee with a finger. “Aren’t they here to protect him?”
He agrees easily, “They are. The Anbu are here to protect this boy, but I want to avoid any potential alterations that may hurt you or Naruto.” His chakra hasn’t changed any throughout their conversation, it stayed the same as it had been when he walked to her apartment, so she thinks he is being truthful. He never actually said what or who would attack Naruto though.
She doesn’t think Naruto would be disappointed if they didn’t go, but she was looking forward to seeing her first festival with Kaho and her parents. She understands though, disappointing as it is, she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Naruto.
Why?
Why would anyone hurt Naruto?
Why would anyone hurt her brother?
If that will of fire protects the village then why doesn’t it protect Naruto?
Ei looks down at her feet. From the day she first took the bottle from a flustered volunteer she asked herself that.
“I know you may be disappointed Ei, but Naruto must be protected.”
She keeps her view on her feet.
Why? Why him?
A common rule of thumb of making an identity on the fly is ‘yes and’. A simple equation for creating a conversation with the intent of creating a story or identity is; one, Agreeing and two, leading.
If one says, “Are you married?” then an appropriate and reasonable response could be, “Yes we are! We’ve been married for twenty-five years now, haven't we Haya?”
“My, my Goro! It’s only been twenty-four years!”
“Ah but it felt like no time at all by your side, my wife.”
In this situation, an outsider observer has made a safe assumption that the middle-aged couple is married, and out of politeness or vague curiosity has asked about the nature of their relationship. The agents in question went along with this, making sure that the answer is satisfying and within the expectations of the outsider. The one posing as ‘Goro’ has provided the yes and an identity for his partner.
The one posing as ‘Haya’ has in turn created an identity for Goro as a loving yet silly husband, leaving the observer to assume that they are a pleasing but forgettable pairing. If the outside observer is still curious they could continue the conversation with the outside observer, perhaps conversing about why they have visited Konoha, or express a want for children of their own while making a remark on the outsider’s own child. If the observer is merely being polite out of social obligation then the conversation can end there.
‘Yes and,’ is a simple method and so often used in conversation that the use of a conversation format is often not noticed or marked as strange.
Other conversation formats can include simple interrogation tactics and subterfuge, adding body language and expressions to the conversation, and how to lead outsiders to follow a format without notice. Scripted conversations can be much more difficult and tend to create a sense of unease in those without chakra as they have come to rely on a familiar set of microexpressions and tones within certain topics.
Keeping these factors in mind, the easy format for unplanned conversations is the ‘yes and,’ format.