Responsible adults
Yashamaru stood with his face impassive as his brother in law ordered him to kill his nephew. It was enough to make a man wonder if maybe those Konoha fuckers didn’t have the right idea after all. He kept his expression utterly blank as he considered his options. Killing Gaara was out of the question. He thought about the sweet innocent six year old that truly didn’t mean to hurt anyone, his sister’s child, the child he had raised, that trusted him. No, if he killed Gaara he would never forgive himself, and for good reason. He could let Gaara kill him, less than ideal but more of a viable option than killing Gaara. Of course he would have to make his betrayal obvious and traumatic, otherwise he’d be a sitting target for anyone trying to manipulate him. Yashamaru could do it, he was a ninja, he breathed manipulation but thinking about it left a sour taste in his mouth when he remembered Gaara asking him about love. Then there was the Konoha option. Much as he hated to think those leaf fuckers might be right about something, it did seem to be the least terrible option.
It wasn’t like it would be hard, he was basically Gaara’s only tie to his home village, if he said they should leave, Gaara would follow without question. The difficulty was that Gaara wasn’t exactly… subtle. He had a slightly unfortunate tendency to leave a trail of messily dead bodies wherever he went, completely unintentional of course, but it did make him a bit easy to track. Hmm maybe if they went somewhere short on sand it would weaken Gaara’s powers and he could try and teach the kid some control. He wasn’t sure when the idea had moved from idle speculation to the actual planning process, but somewhere in the middle of the Kazekage’s briefing he’d decided to go missing nin. He was so glad Suna didn’t have any Yamanaka.
…
Tenzo had been relaxing in a tree in the top secret root training grounds, and he’d come to an alarming realisation. The small ninjas were cute. He was starting to understand why Kakashi senpai had decided to take one with him when he left. The specific small ninjas that had led him to this conclusion were a pair of the younger root operatives, who were playing a game poorly disguised as training. The older one seemed to be the instigator, the younger one nervous at subverting orders, and Tenzo felt an odd twisting in his chest as he watched them. They’d probably get in trouble for this.
He watched some more and he found himself considering just how easy it would be to walk off with these small ninjas. He was technically their superior officer, if he ordered them to go with him, they’d follow him without question. They could be in a whole different country by the time someone noticed they were gone, and as long as they got clear early there was no reason to think they couldn’t stay free. After all Kakashi senpai had got away with stealing a jinchuuriki, Itachi chan had murdered his entire clan, in the grand scheme of things who was going to notice a couple of baby root agents missing.
It wasn’t like he had any pressing reasons to stay. Kakashi senpai had been his closest friend in Konoha, and he’d left years ago, Danzo was a terrible boss, unreasonable, unstable, and quite possibly dangerously insane, and as far as he’d been able to work out missing nin not only got better paid, they got to choose their own missions, which meant no more bodyguard missions for the daimyo’s wife.
He took time to consider his decision of course. He thought about it for a full half hour as he watched the mini ninja play, and came to a decision as they finished their game. He appeared in front of them in full uniform as they were about to leave, and spoke in the flat mission voice all root nin affected.
“You two come with me. We have a mission. You have ten minutes to go and pack any essential supplies and meet me by the meeting point at the north wall.” He was vaguely impressed by how quickly they reacted. They were waiting by the wall in eight minutes, and asked no questions as they moved stealthily away from Konoha. In fact they were deep into Tea country by the time one of them spoke up. The older one.
“Um, excuse me sir, but if you gave us the mission briefing we might be able to organise our resources more efficiently.” Tenzo had to pause to think about his response. To lie or not to lie. On the one hand, ninja, lying was in the job description, and if he came clean now the kids might choose to obey their training and turn on him. On the other hand the truth was bound to come out eventually and he’d stand a better chance of retaining their trust and therefore loyalty if he minimised the deception. He decided to go for brutal honesty.
“Well about that. Technically there isn’t a mission. I decided to go missing nin and take you with me.” He was expecting a certain amount of shock, maybe some anger or fear. He wasn’t expecting the younger one to run up to him and hug his legs.
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou. Shin was going to be retired and I was so scared and I didn’t want to be alone but now you stole us, and we heard that some jounins do that but we didn’t think anyone would steal us, but then you did and now we get to stay together forever and Shin won’t be retired.” The little one babbled. Clearly he seemed to lack a brain to mouth filter but at least it explained why despite their conditioning neither of them seemed too upset to be stolen. Tenzo looked over at the older one.
“You’re Shin I assume.” The kid nodded. “And this little one?” Tenzo asked.
“We don’t really know his name, he arrived when he was too young to remember. I call him Sai.”
“Fair enough. So I take it the two of you have no problem coming with me.” Shin smiled.
“It’s better than getting retired, and at least this way Sai will have someone to look after him when I’m gone.” Tenzo nodded along with this until the last part finshed processing.
“Wait, what do you mean when, you’re gone?”
“I’m sick, the bad sort. That’s why they were going to retire me.” And the tone of his voice was so resigned it broke Tenzo’s heart. Not on his watch.
“You’re not going anywhere. Not while I’m around.” He promised with a ruthless dedication.
“But…” Tenzo refused to let Shin get a word in edgeways.
“No buts. If you’re sick we will find you a medic nin, who will make you better. You are not leaving your little brother alone on my watch.”
...
It had been another mission with Hatake Kakashi, and yet another astonishing success. They really did work well together and for some reason their combined luck on missions was amazing. Possibly because all the bad luck was being diverted back to wherever they left the kids. Still at least this time they didn’t come back to a smoking crater in the ground. The building was on fire but there was no crater. Zabuza chose to see this as progress.
“Haku report.” The boy still looked a little shellshocked as he replied.
“Naruto destroyed civilisation.” Zabuza looked around at the charred wasteland that had once been a village, noted the half-starved dog digging through the wreckage, the burnt out cartwheel strategically placed at the crossroads, and the layered graffiti on the walls of the houses and sighed.
“I can see that. I was hoping you could tell me now.” Haku shuddered.
“It’s kind of a long story.” Zabuza gave in to the impulse to give the boy a comforting pat on the head.
“Just start at the beginning.”
“Well I suppose it started with the porn.” That was not the answer Zabuza had expected.
“Porn?” Haku just nodded sadly before continuing. He was right. It was a long story. It started with Naruto giving an impromptu storytelling session in the town square, that consisted mainly of the plot of Icha Icha paradise. This had enraged certain parties, who had called for widespread censorship on pornographic novels to protect the children, this had in turn enraged the free speech activists, things had escalated from there. Apparently at Haku’s last count there had been over sixty four factions including seventeen religious organisations, five newspapers, three feminist groups (one for pornography, two against), the newly formed sex workers union of rice country, and a group of university students from the capital. No-one was quite sure who first brought out the burning torches and pitchforks, but everyone was now standing rather dejectedly outside the village as the whole place went up in smoke. Zabuza decided discretion was the better part of valour.
After they were safely away from the angry villagers who were just beginning to remember who started the whole mess, Zabuza decided he had some rather pointed questions for Kakashi.
“So Haku tells me Naruto destroyed civilisation by reading pornography to the villagers.”
“I know.” Hatake exclaimed, “Isn’t he so precocious. I didn’t manage to destroy my first village until I was seven.”
“Yes, yes it is rather impressive, it might even be a new record. The point is he did it by reading them pornography.”
“And.” Hatake looked genuinely puzzled.
“Well, the question is how did he manage to memorise the entire plot of Icha Icha paradise?”
“Well he has read it a lot of times. He’s a smart boy, of course he remembers it.”
“He’s read it a lot of times.” Zabuza repeated flatly.
“Well yes, how else was I supposed to teach him to read?”
“You taught him to read using Icha Icha.” Zabuza shouldn’t have been surprised. He really shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew Kakashi was a classic model jounin nutjob. He knew Kakashi, had no social skills and was obsessed with those books. Of course he thought teaching kids to read with pornography was a good idea.
“Of course. It teaches him valuable lessons about life and love at the same time as he learns basic literacy and a love of reading. Besides it was written by his godfather. I think it’s important for kids to find a way to be close to distant family members without actually getting in range of a hunter nin squad.” Kakashi explained seriously.
“You didn’t think that maybe Icha Icha might have been a little innapropriate for such a young kid to be reading.” Zabuza asked without much hope.
“You would think so wouldn’t you, but despite the deep metaphorical and symbolic complexity of the series Jiraya sama’s writing style is actually very clear and concise and suitable or all ages. It’s just another thing that sets Icha Icha apart as one of the great works of modern literature.” Zabuza gave up on subtlety.
“You aren’t supposed to read pornography to five year olds.”
“Really? Why not?” Kakashi asked in genuine incomprehension.
“Because it’s inappropriate.” Zabuza sighed.
“Why?” Zabuza pinched the bridge of his nose and counted backward slowly from ten.
“Because it discusses things that kids are not supposed to be doing until they’re much older.” Zabuza said with infinite patience.
“But we let academy students read books about killing people, even though they aren’t supposed to do that until they graduate.” Kakashi pointed out. The worst thing was he made logical sense. Zabuza had a horrible feeling that if the argument continued Kakashi might actually convince him. The problem didn’t lie in Kakashi’s logic, it lay in the fact that he was apparently missing a vital piece of socialisation that dealt with what is and is not appropriate for children. Come to think of it, when viewed in the light of Kakashi’s background and graduation age it made sense he’d have a slightly skewed idea of what was child friendly. Zabuza gave up. Screw it, he didn’t become a missing nin to teach Sharingan Kakashi people skills. He absent mindedly tossed a kunai at Haku and told him to get dinner, before turning back to Kakashi.
“Whatever. He’s your kid. Just don’t let him read any of that stuff to Haku alright.” Zabuza had enough trouble with the cross dressing, he did not need to add a porn habit to his apprentice’s list of quirks.
Dear Shizune
I know it has been a while since I last wrote to you but I have been very busy with missions and training. I recently learned how to put myself inside an ice mirror, I can think of so many useful application for this skill. How are your poison studies going? Have you managed to fix the dosages on that paralysis poison yet, it sounds very useful.
I must confess. I am not just writing for our usual catchup. Zabuza sama and I met up with Kakashi san and Naruto early last week. Zabuza sama and Kakashi san went off to do a joint mission, and left me in charge of Naruto. Again. I’m sure you can imagine how well that went. This time he managed to cause the total breakdown of civilisation in one small corner of tea country. The list of places I can no longer safely return to is growing. At least there were no extra dimensional horrors this time, although I’m sure they will be back sooner or later.
I hope this letter finds you well.
Your friend, Haku