Chapter 10 -> Part 10

The next morning, Kushina had tried to insist that I wear my haori, but when I explained that I didn't want the village to know who I was, she didn't argue the point. I walked her to where she was meeting Minato for their daily missions before dashing across the rooftops to the briefing room.

"Uzumaki, you're late." Hatake snapped as I hurried inside. I was only a few seconds late.

"Inuzuka and Dog aren't here," I retorted.

"They've already been briefed and are collecting the explosives we'll need." Hatake pulled down the map and provided a visual of our path. "Our team is going to go through Ame and strike directly at the Iwa border posts."

A bad feeling settled in my gut. "What about Hanzō?"

"We're going to have to get past his troops. Ame has attempted to remain neutral in this conflict, but Iwa, Konoha, and Suna have been encroaching on their land. Some shinobi make it out, some don't. This is an A-ranked mission."

"I've been a Chuunin for less than twenty-four hours and I have one completed mission, how the hell am I assigned to something like this?"

"You've been a Chuunin for almost four months, Uzumaki, and you're qualified as a battle medic. Most shinobi would kill for your luck."

I settled down, unhappy. If I had a choice, I would just repeat my last mission. I felt like I was doing something useful. With this mission, I felt like I was only going to hurt people.

Hatake tossed a Bingo Book at me and one at Shimizu. "Newest issue. Uzumaki, you're in there right beside Tsunade-hime, good job. Shimizu, you're still in the clear for infiltration work and after this mission, we're all being reassigned to different teams. We are going to be going in blind to this mission, so let's all make it back, okay? Rendezvous at point three, ten minutes. Uzumaki, with me."

Shimizu left quickly.

"Uzumaki, where's your haori?"

"In my bag. I don't want to wear it in the village."

"From now on, you're to wear it everywhere, especially when you're on-duty. I'm telling this to you as your sensei, not an officer. As your superior, I'm ordering you to start holding your tongue when it comes to your anger at the Hokage. As a fellow shinobi, I'm advising you to wear your hitai-ate normally. Everyone knows you're an Uzumaki now and the best way to protect your sister is to make sure you're the one who's most easily targeted, not her. I talked with her sensei and until she can defend herself properly, she'll be wearing a hood whenever she leaves the village."

He grabbed my arm by the sleeve, which nearly covered my entire hand. They didn't make Chuunin uniforms for kids who should have been Genin, though they did make ANBU uniforms, which I found to be a little annoying. He pulled out four strips of white cloth and used it to tie my sleeve just above my elbow and around my wrist so it didn't fall over my hands and hinder my dexterity. As I pulled on the haori, I felt like a miniature rip-off of the future Yondaime. I snickered.

"Alright, what is so funny about this haori?" Sakumo demanded. "You've been dodging the question for months now."

I couldn't help it, I busted out in uncontrollable laughter.

He was not amused.

"Fine, ha, the future Yondaime wore a white haori in this style with red flames and his title down the back. I totally ripped him off."

"I still don't see what's funny."

"Ha, I stole the style of the man who defeated the Kyuubi. Not only will there be no Kyuubi for him to defeat, but he'll be stuck in those ugly Hokage robes. The best part is that no one else gets it!" I switched the bandanna-style of my hitai-ate to the standard style and let my bangs flop over it. Thankfully they weren't too long to get in my eyes, though the rest of my hair was raggedly cut just below my chin. On the previous mission, I had discovered why styles from my world were rare among shinobi. Scissors were not a very common item on missions and kunai were the preferred hair-cutting instrument. Understandably, that made longer cuts easier and more common.

"Ever thought that you might end up being the Yondaime?"

"Like hell the old codger would hand me his hat, not after the stunt I pulled going after the kidnapping and then challenging him like I did. Give it about twelve years and you'll know exactly who the Yondaime will be."

"Don't think you can get strong enough?"

"Sure, I could, but I don't want to be Hokage, just strong enough that I can do whatever the hell I want and no one can tell me otherwise. Don't we have a mission to head out on?"

Sakumo slapped the back of my head.

(-_-)

I don't know if it was luck or skill that made the mission go smoothly. We managed to destroy three of Iwa's bases with a rather impressive array of explosives, not that I did any of the detonating. I hid about a kilometer away and enjoyed the show. At least, I enjoyed it as much as I could. Explosions were always cool, but explosions with bodies flying from the wreckage were much less so. When we crossed back into Ame, the trouble started. Within a day, we had fought three different Ame teams. The first two, we defeated, but the third literally caught us napping. If Shimizu hadn't noticed the Genjutsu at the last minute, we would have been slaughtered. Hatake barely had a chance to bark out orders for me to head back to base without them, which I ignored in favor of knocking out his opponent from behind. We were forced to flee and lost most of our supplies in the process. Because of it, Hatake split the team.

If we did happen to chance across any food, there was a small chance it would be able feed us all and smaller groups could travel without detection easier than a larger group. Hatake and I split off and took the longer route back. At the Ame-Konoha border, we chanced upon the remnants of a village.

"There might be leftover food in one of these houses," I suggested. For some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling of déjà vu. "Watch my back?"

"Go ahead." Cautiously, we entered the largest of the houses and made a beeline for the kitchen. I opened the cupboards looking for something. "Someone's been here recently, I can smell them and blood."

"Shinobi?"

"You can't identify shinobi by smell, Uzumaki. Civilian blood smells exactly the same. I don't think they're here now."

"I'll check the house to be sure." I wandered through the house, peering cautiously into rooms, my sticks in my hands and chakra in my feet in case of a surprise. I expected a trap. What I didn't expect was to have a pair of violet eyes staring at me out of the darkness. I raised my sticks defensively.

"Ise, it's him, it's Ryuunosuke's child!" A woman breathed. The eyes looked away for a moment.

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded. Hatake silently appeared just out of their sight and I forced myself not to look.

"I'm Uzumaki Fusō, civilian," the woman slowly put her hands out where I could see them then stepped forward into the light. "I was friends with your mother, Midori, before she died. The last time I saw her, you were just a newborn, Kichiro."

"And my father's name?"

"Uzumaki," Hatake growled in warning.

"Ryuunosuke."

I lowered my sticks and put them away.

"Did they survive the massacre? If you're here, they must have gotten you out!"

"They both died long before the massacre."

"You poor thing—" She stepped forward, her arms out, but stopped abruptly when Hatake held a blade to her throat before she could reach me.

"Let her go," I told him. "Not even Kushina knows the names of our parents."

"How can you be sure your clan records weren't stolen by Kiri?"

"Because only an Uzumaki could get into the record scrolls. They're sealed shut," Fusō answered.

I nodded, though it wasn't the answer I was going to give.

"Who else is with you?" Hatake asked, not lowering the blade.

"Just my husband and son."

"Bring them out."

I had to hide my shock as a redheaded man rose slowly from the shadows with a boy hiding behind his leg. There was no mistaking Nagato.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm a doctor and my wife is a nurse. We were passing though this village looking for survivors when we stopped here for a few days."

"Uzumaki," Sakumo gestured towards them.

"I'm a medic-nin. May I see your hands so I can confirm you're not shinobi I order to satisfy my paranoid teammate? It won't hurt, I promise."

They each held out a hand to me. Mine glowed green as it wrapped around each of their wrists in turn. All adult Uzumaki could use seals even if they weren't a shinobi. Their chakra systems were active, but barely anywhere near the levels of a Genin. They were clearly civilians.

"Check the boy too," Hatake ordered.

I rolled my eyes and knelt, holding my hand out to Nagato. Very slowly, he placed his hand in mine.

While travelling across the warfronts I had encountered plenty of Uchiha and Hyuuga. Their chakra had a distinctive twist to it around their eyes, as well as the structural differences. Nagato's had a similar twist around his, but it was obviously dormant and his chakra levels were nearly Genin level, though also dormant.

"They're all Uzumaki civilians," I told Hatake. "Now let her go. They are who they say they are."

Slowly, he put away his kunai and Fusō put her arm around my shoulders. "Your mother would be extremely proud of you, Kichiro. Though probably not very happy you're not eating your vegetables. You're scrawny!"

"How the hell would you know I don't eat vegetables?"

"Your father hated them and you're his spitting image, right down to the language," Ise replied, picking up Nagato.

"Uzumaki, a word," Hatake said sharply.

"Hai!" I responded. "Would you mind waiting in the kitchen?"

When we were sure they were in the kitchen, Hatake turned on me. "You know better than to behave like that in enemy territory!"

"We have to bring them back to Konoha. At least, we have to bring the boy."

"What has gotten into you?"

"The boy has a dormant Rinnegan."

"That's a myth."

"Remember when we first met and I told you who I really was? Well that boy in there grew up to flatten Konoha."

"The masked man?"

"No, he singlehandedly destroyed the entire village with one jutsu about sixteen years after the Kyuubi attack. It all started because two Konoha shinobi came into the house, exactly like us, looking for food, except his parents fought and died to give him a chance to run. We bring them back to Konoha now, the plans of the man pulling the strings fall apart."

"You're asking me to bring three foreign civilians back to Konoha."

"You don't have to be responsible, but I'm bringing them back."

"You're already on thin ice, kid."

"What do you expect me to do?" I shouted at him. "Leave part of my family in the middle of a warzone when I can save them? I can't stay to protect them! The minute the Hokage hears about it he'll drag my ass back to Konoha and I won't see the light of day until he's dead!"

"Then what are you going to tell him?" Hatake demanded loudly.

"Whatever he asks for. It's not like I am still physically capable of lying to him."

"You'll get in trouble—"

"Since when has that ever stopped—"

"You won't be dealing with me, boy."

"No, I won't, I'll be dealing with a man who will free me by betrayal."

"You're in over your head."

"So much for hiding away in some obscure village, right?"

"Hide them away in an obscure village, bring them back after the war."

"No, we bring them to Konoha or I stay with them and see what comes."

"I could drag you back."

"You'd never fight me like that."

"Fine, on your head be it. This is going to blow up in your face."

"I know." I turned on my heel and marched out.

"Everything alright?" Fusō asked when I walked in.

I leaned on the table that the small family sat around and Hatake stood just inside the door, arms crossed. "When I left Uzu during the massacre, I escaped with eight others. That I'm aware of, no one else made it off the island alive. I can bring any or all of you back to Konoha, if you want. I won't make you, but I want you to come back, even though I can't promise you anything other than a place to live and food to eat."

The two adults exchanged a glance. "Hanzō is already after us," Ise said in a low voice.

Fusō looked down at Nagato, who slept on her shoulder.

"We might not get another chance."

"We're helping people, Ise."

"We can help people in Konoha as well. There's always a need for doctors and nurses."

"We came here—"

"We have a son to think about now. If Hanzō catches us, he'll kill Nagato as well."

"What if we send him—"

"Kichiro can't take care of a kid, shinobi or not, he's still a child himself."

"I take care of my sister just fine. She's still alive, isn't she?" They ignored me.

Fusō's arms tightened around Nagato. "What happened to the other children you escaped with?"

"They're living in a civilian orphanage and my sister lives with me."

"Those children need a family, Fusō. We don't have anything left here."

They debated silently until Fusō turned to me. "We'll come with you, but only if It won't cause you problems with the Hokage. We could hear your argument."

"You can't do anything to change my problem with the Hokage, for better or worse."

"You said you have a sister?"

I nodded. "She's the one you should be harping on about not eating vegetables."

"Now that's settled, we need to get moving. There's about a month left before Uzumaki and I need to report back to Konoha and we won't be able to afford to stop very often if we're going to make it at a civilian pace," Hatake said sharply.

"Roads are for people with no imagination," Fusō smiled at him. "We'll make it in plenty of time."

And we did. As soon as we reached the signature Konoha trees, Ise leapt into the treetops and stood upside down.

"We may not be able to move as fast as shinobi, but we can travel much faster than civilians," he explained.

Hatake glared at me.

"Uzumaki have a very different definition of 'civilian'," I answered, scowling. Travelling alone, it would have taken me a week to reach Konoha. Fusō and Ise managed to make it back in two weeks and I carried Nagato the entire way.

As we ran, Fusō and Ise bombarded me with questions about myself, everything I knew about sealing, my sister and the other orphans, my rank, what I liked and disliked about being a shinobi, how long I'd been a shinobi, why I chose to be one, and any other topic that crossed their minds. The two of them were smart and I had a feeling they picked up more from my answers than I wanted them to. Sakumo kept his distance.

"How is Mito? I barely remember her from when I was a child but she always used to visit during the summer."

"She's dead," I answered bluntly. Ise dropped the firewood he was gathering. Fusō's grip tightened around my wrist.

"That means you—" Ise broke off.

"You poor thing!" Fusō cried. She hugged me tightly and the questions turned in an entirely different direction. Eventually, Ise struck up a debate with me over medicine and different treatments. She sits beside me as I fall asleep that night, gently rubbing my back.

They didn't press whenever I refused to answer a question, which I was thankful for.

As we passed through the main gates, I steeled myself, ignoring the alarmed looks as two ANBU landed on either side of me and one behind them. I tightened my grip on Nagato and we ran across the rooftops to the Hokage tower.