Chapter 11: Academy Arc: Five

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Kaa-san comes home that night to the three of us sitting at the kitchen table with a clatter and a crash. Or more to the point, she throws open the door and roars several choice words about Shimura Danzo, which is very much something that Inuzuka Tsume would do. "If I have to see that old fossil one more time I will have a stroke."

Itachi and Izumi look at each other, and then back at me. "Is this normal?" Izumi's the first to ask it, as Itachi's too polite to even try to put such a question into words.

I nod.

"Of course it is, puppies." Kuromaru pads into the room, his nails clicking on the wooden floors. "Tsume doesn't mince words when she's angry with someone, much less someone who was as irritating as Elder Shimura today."

"You talk." Izumi blinks rapidly at Kaa-san's partner.

I laugh at Izumi's startled expression. "Don't you have summons?" She looks at me completely nonplussed, and I simply smile at her before going to hug Kaa-san. It is only then that I notice the dark-haired man behind her.

Uchiha Fugaku? Is this Itachi's father?

"Itachi. Izumi." Itachi's face lights up when he sees the man by the doorway and he rises with Sasuke still carried in that sling in his arms. Izumi shuffles to her feet rather awkwardly while not looking him in the eye. "We cannot afford to intrude much more on Inuzuka-san's hospitality."

"Oh come off it, Fugaku, don't let that old fossil get you down about this." Kaa-san sets a hand on her hip, and grimaces at him.

Fugaku sends Kaa-san a rather unimpressed look. "He has the power to move my entire clan."

Kaa-san sends him a very unimpressed look right back. "Well, he's going to gain more power if we keep letting him take it."

Fugaku doesn't respond, instead he looks at me and Kiba for the first time since entering the room. "And you two are?"

I straighten automatically as I walk to stand before him. "Inuzuka Hana and Inuzuka Kiba. It's nice to meet you, Uchiha-san."

He blinks at me as though he'd just seen something bizarre. "You must take after your father."

The second drawer of the dresser. I'm proud. Proud of you, Sprout. I smile up at him. "Thank you, Uchiha-san." There had to be a reason why Tou-san mentioned the second drawer. There is something that he wanted me to have there, or he wouldn't have mentioned it. I notice that he has a startled look on his face before I spin and race away back to my parents room through three sets of sliding doors.

There is nothing in the second drawer of Tou-san and Kaa-san's dresser, from the top or the bottom. I sit there on the floor and try to figure out where I went wrong.

He'd said the second drawer of the dresser, and then that he was proud of me. Would whatever he'd wanted me to have be in the second drawer of my dresser?

I look over at Ichi. "What do you think?"

He tilts his head to the left. "It's worth a try."

Unfortunately, there's nothing in my dresser either. I sit with my head on my knees against the wall opposite the offending piece of furniture. What other dresser is there in the house?

"There's the new pup's!" Ni squeaks this from under the bed and I stand up again. Yes, that's the last place I'll look before calling it quits on trying to find Tou-san's things for right now.

I walk over to Kiba's nursery room and stare at the wide two drawer dresser pushed towards one wall. I just stand there, and I can't open it. Please, Tou-san. Tell me you left it here.

I open the drawer, and there's a package on top of a stack of papers. I take them all back to my room. As I walk down the hallway a note slips out from the pile and I pick it up and turn it over.

"Remember to give Sprout the papers as an academy graduation present. Also, birthday present number five is unlimited candy from the corner shop. The package is birthday present number six." My eyes fill with tears, and I wipe them away on my sleeve.

I make it to my room before the outburst comes in earnest. Thank you. Thank you so much for loving me, Tou-san. Even while he was dying he'd wanted me to know where my presents were.

I place the papers in the second drawer of my dresser, but I don't look at them. Instead, I go to sleep, still sniffling and wiping away tears.

I rise at dawn the next morning for my morning run, but this time I make it more ambitious, I decide that I could stand to take a lap around the village. The Academy is closed of course, as there is more need to help rebuild the village, but I would still need to go home.

And so I set out running down the side of the Naka river. As I make my way into center city, the destruction becomes more obvious. There are entire streets and buildings flattened, some river water's settled into the dusty streets, and little mementos are everywhere. I see no bodies though, and for that, I thank the clean up crews for doing such a good job.

I'm still ogling at the husk of what once must have been a kunai shop from across the street when someone else staggers into me and we both go flying back into the street.

"Rin?" The word's slurred and barely recognizable as a word at all, but the face attached to the only Rin I knew of in this universe is all too clear. I look up to find a Kakashi sans mask, his forehead protector barely hanging on over the sharingan. His eye is glassy and unfocused as he peers at me, and I am suddenly far too uncomfortable.

It's too early in the morning to deal with this. "Hatake-san?"

His hand brushes against my clan birthmarks and he frowns, but staggers to his feet, pulling me with him. "'s wrong color. When'd it change?" He's still swaying on his feet and I reach out to steady him before I could think of what to do. Is he sick? Is he running a fever, delirious? I try to feel his forehead, but he pushes my hand away. "'M fine." His hands are clammy and I can only assume that he's some sort of sick.

There's only really one person that I can turn to for help about this, and we aren't that far away from the house. Let's go take a walk back to Kaa-san shall we.

I throw an arm of his over my shoulder. "Alright...Kakashi," His name tastes so foreign on my tongue. "We're going to take a walk, alright?" He hmms and is still so not in sync with the real world that I feel a bit of panic.

"They're all dead, Rin." This close, I can smell the alcohol on his breath. Kakashi's a talkative drunk? "All of them, even you. Don't know why you're here." His head falls forwards and he's dragging his feet in the street, making it much harder to walk with him. "S-sensei, and Kushina-nee-chan, 'n you 'n 'bito." He sucks in a lungful of air and breaks down laughing. "'M the only one left."

I can't quite match this Kakashi with the same hostile antagonistic child that'd been so angry the first time I'd gone to visit Obito's name on the memorial stone.

I maneuver the sliding door open and we stumble in across the threshold. I put him in the spare room, and he seems vaguely content to stay there rocking back and forth. I wrap him in a spare blanket anyway, and he frowns at me. "not cold."

I do my best to smile brightly at him. Rin smiled...right? "You will be." I tuck the corners down around his shoulders. "And then you'll want it." I pad out of the room carefully to the kitchen to boil ginger and toast bread.

Knowing how incredibly out of it he is now, he'll need the hangover cure when he wakes up.

Kaa-san rises and clatters into the kitchen in the middle of my fried egg journey. "Is there a reason you're making your cousin's favorite hangover cure?"

I turn to her from my position on the chair and put a finger to my lips. "I ran into a hungover scarecrow today who must be old 'cause he has white hair, anyway he's in the guest room."

Kaa-san narrows her eyes at me and slides open the screen door. She comes back to stand beside me. "That's not a scarecrow. That's the Hatake boy." She tilts my chin up so I have to look her in the eye. "How'd he let you drag him here anyway? They say that he's a violent drunk."

I frown. "He talked a whole bunch about how he was sorry, and such." I wave a hand in the air to emphasize my point. "He thought I was Rin." I turn back to the stove so I can flip the egg. "Kaa-san, who's Rin?"

"His genin teammate." I hand Kaa-san a plateful of eggs and she starts eating right there, but before she can even sit down at the table there's a knocking at the front door.

"Tsume-sama, Tsume-sama." Kaa-san marches down the hallway and jerks open the door.

"What?" She barks at the frightened young man on the other side.

"They've found Gaku." He shakes himself as if to clear his head. "He's alive." Kaa-san snags an egg and sets the plate down on the kitchen table.

"Watch Kiba please, Little Nose. I'm going to go check on your cousin." With that, like a whirlwind, she's out the door dragging the hapless messenger in her wake.

I'm sitting with Kiba with my back to Kakashi when I feel a kunai against my throat. "You shouldn't be unkind to your hosts, Hatake-san." My mouth sets into a hard line when he doesn't take the kunai away. "Get the kunai away from my Otouto before I rip your throat out with my teeth, Hatake-san."

He lets go and staggers around me so he can lean against the wall. "Why am I here?"

I point to the hangover treatment and breakfast on the small table off to my right. "Because you were drunk, mistaking me for other people, and about to pass out in the street and roll into the river which would cause you to drown."

He glances at the table and then back at me. "Who did I think you were?"

I raise an eyebrow at him. "How would I know who Rin is?" He visibly flinches at this and I rise still holding Kiba. "Anyway, I'm sure you can show yourself out." Of course, I bear no resemblance to the saintly Nohara Rin when he's actually in control of his memory and visual capacity.

I don't want to follow her example anyway.

The academy reopens a week later, and I reluctantly let Cousin Ashi mind Kiba in my absence. She'd torn ligaments in both her legs during the Kyuubi Incident and is quite content to remain in the reserve forces instead of being on the active duty roster. "Are you sure that you'll be alright with Kiba?" I'm not really trying to question her, I just can't stop worrying.

She looks at me and laughs. "I'll be alright, Hana." Her gaze turns distant. "I'm sorry that I missed the memorial for everyone, but Gaku's been returned to me, so that's what matters." Aunt Kosshi had been her mother and she'd missed the memorial because they had to put her through emergency surgery just so she could still walk.

I would never be able to be as strong as she is.

"You should come and stay with us." I offer.

Cousin Ashi smiles at me. "I think Tsume-baa-san will do a good job leading the clan." She sets a hand on my hair, but doesn't ruffle it. "I'm going to be alright little cousin, you don't need to worry about me."

Thus, reassured, I set off to school.

I settle into a crouch in the ring opposite Izumi, who is still smiling, but I'd already made a vow. This time I won't lose to her.

She comes at me, fists swinging and I pivot to the side to grab her wrist in a hold loose enough that she doesn't think to break before I throw her over my hip using her own forward momentum. It's not hard enough to push her out of the ring as she skids forward.

I could see the gears in her head turning, and I beckon for her to come again. Her lips flatten to an unamused line, and mine curl upwards in a parody of Kaa-san's deadly smile as I raise an eyebrow. Let her come.

We trade a flurry of blows before her guard drops and I punch her in the stomach hard enough to hurt, but not enough to bruise.

"Do you yield?" I ask her as she lies panting in the dust.

She nods, and we draw the mark of reconciliation to signal the end of the match.

"Uchiha-kun." I wave at Itachi from where I'd been sandwiched between Tokuma and Muta. His eyes light up when he realizes that I'm indeed still talking to him and I feel a twinge of remorse for ignoring him for so long. "Come have lunch with us."

"Hey, why're we-" I turn a saccharine sweet smile on Tokuma and he snaps his mouth shut as Itachi makes his way over.

"Toku-kun, it isn't nice to discriminate against people. Besides if we let Uchiha-kun sit alone he'll be mobbed by his fangirls."

Muta adjusts his glasses with his left hand. "I thought you didn't care what happened to Uchiha-kun."

Itachi pauses awkwardly a foot away from us. "I can go away if you'd like." He looks disappointed again, standing there with slumped shoulders.

"No, do sit down." Muta gestures to the space in our circle. "I was just curious as to why, Hana-chan had a change of heart."

I laugh. "Well, Uchiha-kun isn't mean so he can stay."

Itachi offers our group a small smile as he sits down. "Thank you, very much for letting me stay."

Tokuma huffs and crosses his arms, but says nothing mean. By his own standards it's quite a bit frosty, but by common Hyuga standards the gesture is positively friendly so I let it be.

Itachi shows up after school with a shuriken pouch at my unofficial training ground. He holds it front of him awkwardly and nearly shoves it in my direction when I turn to look at him. "I thought we could practice together since Otou-san was teaching me, but we hadn't started in the academy yet."

I beam at him. "Of course, but we should stretch first, otherwise we'd get sore."

He sits down across from me and bends over his legs like my mirror image. "I hoped we could spar today, too."

The words are so quiet I almost don't catch them. "Sure." I say, and poke his sandal. "But don't expect me to go easy on you just because you're the top of the class."

His eyes light up as he smiles, and he doesn't look like someone who will grow up to murder his entire clan. He just looks like a little boy who'd finally made an actual friend.

A.N. Thanks to the Guest for reviewing, and everyone for favoriting and following Bloodless.

Ashen, the side stories, is up as of yesterday, so you all should go and check it out when you get the chance.

See you next time!

~Tavina.