Chapter 4
Somehow it gets worse after that.
It’s hard enough living with the realization that she’s been reborn with an entirely new circulatory system that parasitizes energy from her training and studying and doesn’t like her.
But then the teacher begins making noises about learning to mold this system to their wills.
Like trying to harness the weird unnatural force for its powers isn’t going to end horror movie style.
Especially since they’re using those dumb hand signs to do so.
She feels a little bad for disparaging it, since Naruto’s trying so hard to form them properly.
But most of them look like they’d dislocate her fingers if she wasn’t careful, her mind recalling videos of howling children who tried a little too hard to copy their favorite show and were left with fingers that dangled the wrong way.
She can’t risk damaging her tools again.
“Ketsugi.” The teacher says. “Demonstrate the Ox sign for the class.”
She cautiously twists her fingers, then drops them when something twinges. “Can't do it.”
“Of course you can, if you bother to try. The Ox sign.” The teacher snaps.
“But these aren’t necessary, right?” She pushes.“They just make using ch-chakra easier. A handicap.”
The teacher sighs. “They’re a tool, not a handicap, which you would know if you were paying attention to the lesson. Form the signs, Rat through Serpent.”
“I’m not doing them.” She snaps. “It’s embarrassing as a human being!”
There’s a moment of silence as what she said sinks in.
“Mizuki-sensei, why does Ketsugi-san look so smug?”
“Because she’s about to serve detention Uchiha.” The teacher growls. “Ketsugi, out in the hallway, now!”
She pouts as she holds the water buckets. They’re not even that heavy after training with Gai-sensei.
And so what if she was smug? She got to say Nico Robin’s line, she deserves to feel proud for that.
“It’s embarrassing as a human being.” She whispers to herself and can barely stifle slightly hysterical giggles.
Naruto and Kiba end up in detention with her after school.
Somehow they managed to turn the teacher’s white hair orange enough to rival Nami’s.
It’s almost the same length too, making her snicker.
She thinks of her own hair, now below her chin. It’s too fine and straight to pull off Nami's look. She pouts down at her fingers.
“What is your family symbol anyways?” Kiba says, cracking his knuckles and shaking his fingers out. They’ve been cycling through the dumb signs for the past twenty minutes.
She peeks down at her shirt where there’s a little embroidered grey pelican with its wings raised to almost form a circle and a red tomoe where its beak meets its breast.
“It’s a pelican.” She says. “A sea bird. Their beak can hold lots of water, like a bucket.”
“Oh.” He fidgets, scratching the markings on his face. Akamaru barks. “Is that why it’s your family symbol? Carrying water?”
“Ah, no.” She gestures towards it as covertly as she can. “There’s this idea from a long time ago that pelicans babies are nursed on blood. So the pelican stabs itself with its beak so it can feed its babies. It’s a metaphor for something, like self-sacrifice, I think. I’m pretty sure they don’t do that in the wild.”
Kiba “hmms” and a frown creases Naruto’s face, but he doesn’t say anything for the rest of the afternoon, and that evening he’s back to normal.
She wonders if she should’ve questioned it.
One day a little under half of their class is gone.
She looks around. “Where is everyone?”
“You mean you don’t know?” Ino gasps, looking vaguely ill. Her skin’s pale and there’s bags under her eyes.
She and Naruto glance at one another. She shakes her head.
The blonde leans in close, voice dropping to a whisper. “The entire Uchiha clan was killed last night. Massacred.”
She blinked, looking around at the empty seats. Then it hits her. “What?! Even the—”
Ino shrugged, rubbing her arms. “I don’t know. They haven’t reported any survivors. J-just that the clan compound was—w-was—”
The blonde began trembling violently, breath coming in harsh gasps. Her eyes widen and she slips an arm around Ino’s shoulders, frantically gesturing to Naruto who looks like he’s confronting a bomb instead of a panicking girl.
Between them they got Ino sitting down and nibbling half-heartedly on an orange slice. Shikamaru, Kiba and Choji are in just as bad shape. Chouji is chewing his thumb so hard he makes it bleed, while Shika jumps at the slightest sound. Kiba’s just curled around Akamaru.
Nobody talks much that day.
Eventually the teacher throws his hands up and tells them all to go home early.
All the other civilian kids leave immediately in twos and threes. The clan kids stay seated.
Ino laughs hollowly when Sakura asks what’s taking her so long. Chouji won’t stop trembling. The quiet boy in the back buzzes restlessly. Kiba even lets out a whimper.
She exchanges glances with Sakura and Naruto.
They’re scared stiff.
Naruto stands up, and goes to where his stalker and the quiet boy sit at the back of the room. “Hey,” He says, “Wanna walk home with Mayu-chan an’ Sakura-chan an’ Ino an’ Shika an’ Chouji an’ Dogbreath and me?”
He sounds out of breath once he’s finished.
“U-um,” The stalker stutters. The quiet boy says, “That will not be necessary. Why? Because...”
“Oh come off it and walk with us.” She snaps. “We’ll hold hands and everything. Safety in numbers, right Shikamaru?”
He scoffs, but stares intensely at a spot on the wall. She can practically see the cogs turning in his head.
“Okay.” He says. “Here’s how we’ll do this.”
They run into Lee on the way out, but he gets incorporated into their weird-dodechahedron-chain-thing easily enough.
He and Naruto are at the front, laughing and talking like nothing’s wrong. Naruto holds Kiba and his stalker’s hands, while Lee holds the quiet boy’s and Shikamaru’s.
The clan kids make up a mass in the middle. Kiba (after much grumbling) holds the quiet boy’s other hand, while the stalker holds Ino’s and Shikamaru grasps Chouji’s hand.
She and Sakura take the rear, holding hands and not doing as good a job as Lee and Naruto at pretending everything’s fine. Sakura’s also holding Ino’s other hand and she’s holding Chouji’s.
People stare at them as they walk, barely tripping each other up.
Some snigger, but more look pitying.
She spots a couple of masks following them at a distance and tightens her grip on Sakura and Chouji.
They go to the compound that’s farthest from the village proper first and work their way in.
The quiet boy’s father has glasses like his son, and thanks them with a low buzz for returning “Shino”.
Kiba’s mum gives him a noogie and her dog calls them “good kids” gruffly.
The stalker is welcomed by an attendant who calls her “Hinata-sama”, flicks cold eyes over them and shuts the door in their faces.
Ino’s mum is almost in hysterics and she can’t stop hugging and kissing her daughter.
Chouji’s dad looks on the verge of tears, and he calls them brave for looking after his son.
Shikamaru’s mum keeps it better together, but her voice cracks when she thanks them.
When she closes the door on them, Mayu, Naruto, Lee and Sakura all look at each other, pensive and grave. The four “civilians” with no compounds to hide in.
Not that the compound saved the Uchiha.
“Wanna go cook something at my place?” She asks.
Her parents return with Gai-sensei and a pink-haired man and a blonde woman who introduce themselves as Kizashi and Mebuki Haruno.
They hug their daughter for a long time.
Lee looks longingly at the scene, so Gai-sensei slaps him on the shoulder and challenges him to run 100 times around their garden on his hands. Otou-sama eagerly asks if he can join in, which Gai-sensei enthusiastically agrees with.
Otou-sama repeatedly falls on his face, but he looks like he’s having fun.
She checks to see if the meat is done, then calls out that the food she, Naruto, Sakura and Lee have prepared is ready.
Naruto grabs the extra chairs while Sakura balances a pitcher of ice water and the hot plate and Lee brings out covered dishes of thinly sliced vegetables and rice.
It’s too hot for hot pot really, and they’re all sweltering as they crowd round the dining table Gai-sensei and Kizashi lugged outside, but at the same time it feels like the heat of the dish could almost burn away the horrors that happened today, warm and mild flavors grounding them in the idea of home and family and making it seem ridiculous that such things could be violated.
Her mother brings out bottles of sake, and she can tell by the way Mebuki Haruno whistles that it’s good stuff.
She uncorks one bottle and pours a dish out for everyone, even the children.
Then her father uncorks the other and holds it up in one hand, his sake dish in the other.
“To the Uchiha. May their memory be honored, may they find justice, and may their spirits be at peace in the next life.”
“To the Uchiha.” They chorus, and he pours the bottle out into the grass as they drink.
She’s never had the tongue for alcohol so it doesn’t taste very nice. From the way Naruto’s sticking his tongue out, Sakura’s hacking, and Lee’s pulling a face, they think the same.
Luffy, I know this isn’t really your thing. She thinks. But maybe get Robin or Nami or Brook to help you out. Please, please get those poor souls somewhere they’ll be happy and free. And knock the fucker who did a Buster Call on them out with a gomu gomu no bazooka.
She tosses back the rest of the sake with that silent prayer.
Naruto leans into her side, resting his head on her shoulder, so she rests her head atop his. Okaa-sama sits down on his other side, taking his hand and carding her free one through Mayu’s hair. Otou-sama brackets them on the other side, throwing an arm over their shoulders and drawing them all together, a bit squashed, and adds his hand to the pile.
They watch the sun set and mourn the lives lost.
Nobody goes home that night.
The masks don’t even come for Naruto.
They end up spread out around the living room, futons and bedding haphazardly laid out.
She wakes up in the early morning with Naruto spreadeagled beside her on the floor, one foot in her father’s stomach and her mother curled up behind her and—
The mask that hurt her standing over them.
She tenses weakly, eyes frantically darting around. Her father is at their feet, so he’ll have to go over them to save her, giving the mask enough time to slit her throat.
Gai-sensei is sitting in her mother’s armchair, head thrown back and snoring while Lee is curled up on his lap. He won’t get to her in time either.
Kizashi is squashed on the couch, with Mebuki blocking him in. Sakura is on the coffee table for some reason, cuddling a paperweight. She can’t drag them into this.
She’s not strong like the Monster Trio. Hell, she can’t even hold a candle to the Coward Trio. There’s no way she’ll be able to take the mask and live to tell the tale. She’ll barely scratch him.
The mask looks at her. She curls a hand around Naruto’s arm protectively and glares back.
He raises a single finger the mouth of the mask and bursts into a flurry of leaves.
She can’t go back to sleep after that.
They’re in the morning paper.
Not as the front page headline. No, that’s reserved for a picture of a little boy that’s so much like the anime stills that used to be bandied about in flame wars of her past life, with the headline UCHIHA ITACHI CONFIRMED KILLER above it and the phrase SEVEN YEAR OLD SOLE SURVIVOR OF MASSACRE underneath.
They are halfway down the second page though. There’s a grainy photograph of their hand-holding escort, taken so as to obscure Naruto as much as possible behind Lee.
It doesn’t quite work, because you can see his hair and ear, and his hands holding Hinata and Kiba, the Uzumaki spiral clearly visible on his shirtsleeve.
Naruto eagerly points this out, and bragging about how “We’re famous now, believe it!”
The caption under it reads: Clan and civilian children draw together in historic show of solidarity. Whoever writes for the paper likes alliteration too much for anyone’s good.
Her father peers at it. “That’s quite a scary face you’re making there Mayu-chan.”
She says nothing and eats her rice quickly while her mother gives Otou-sama a Look.
It’s not her fault she was glaring at the masks when the photo was taken.
Everyone’s talking about the photo in class too.
Ino’s even signing copies of it.
At least she’s feeling better. The others seem to back to a semblance of normality too.
All except the stalker. She keeps stealing quick, furtive glances at Naruto, before gazing sadly back down at her hands.
Ino notices her staring and nudges her. “I heard Hinata’s dad blew a gasket at the picture. Said she’s not allowed to associate with Naruto anymore.” She says conspiratorially.
She winces. For a moment she’d been so caught up in the sense of communal mourning, she’d forgotten she lived in a world where Naruto was a pariah.
“Anything we can do?” She murmurs to Ino.
The blonde purses her lips, tapping her chin, but Sakura, with bags under bloodshot eyes from drinking a bit too much and sleeping on a table, is the one who answers. “Have her sit on the girl’s side of the table. That the way she’s close to Naruto without associating.”
“Sakura, that’s brilliant!” Ino gushes.
Instead of blushing and modestly denying the praise like usual, Sakura presses her face into the desk and mumbles, “Fuck yeah I am, shannaro.”
She cracks up at the expression on Ino’s face.
Naruto invites Shino to sit with him as well to disguise their intentions.
He accepts, but seems a little on edge with all the noise, curling in on himself a little whenever Ino or Kiba or Naruto go a little loud in the volume department.
It’s not his fault; some people just don’t do as well with noisy gatherings like this.
Hinata’s perked up a lot though, so there’s that.
She tries to follow Ino’s efforts to make Hinata feel included, but her mind keeps going back to the headline picture.
She knows about him vaguely. She used to participate in many arguments by claiming that Roronoa Zoro would definitely kick his pasty little arse seven ways to Sunday, magic eye or no.
There were enough pictures and videos of him and Naruto fighting online that she knew they were enemies, even if she didn’t know the whys or hows.
She knows his brother killed his clan, and the flame wars over whether this was justified would always take over the thread.
Sitting here with under half the class gone, dark-haired kids whose names she should’ve made more effort to remember, it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. But she digresses.
The image of the little lost boy staring at the camera like he can’t understand what’s happening to him returns to haunt her. Naruto used to look like that, when he went home covered in rotted produce and belly growling.
Sanji preserve her, but she’s a sap.
“Will the Uchiha go hungry now?” She asks herself, pushing a grain of rice around.
There’s a silence.
When she looks up, the rest of the table is staring at her. Some inquisitive, some suddenly calculating, one despairing.
Naruto groans, startlingly loud. “I’m not sharing my lunch with him. You can make him food, but I’m not gonna sit with him, believe it.”
“I don’t want to either.” She says honestly, and bites into her red bean bun as those around her stare in bemusement.
Naruto suddenly grins, bright and vicious. “You’re so weird, Mayu-chan.” He crows, biting into his own bun.
She shrugs. Well, he’s not wrong.