The Child Seen But Not Heard

In A Box With Apples

[great-tweets]

Beware!

[rayvenreayes]

Avoid sci-hub too👀

[queeranarchism]

From Ask for PDFs from People with Institutional Access

[prof-grace-aspen]

Also, everyone seems to forget this, but if you’re in college, CHECK YOU LIBRARY’S WEBSITE. they usually have access to a ton of journals. Sometimes a site that says you don’t have access will work if you access it through your school’s library website.

[cryptidize]

Fuck It, Internet Guide

Hey there! As social media becomes more and more inhospitible for the local user, I wanted to post some useful/fun links to just about anything I can think of! Enjoy! Also, if you'd like an invite to the P!rated Games discord, lmk! ^_^

I AM CURRENTLY STILL UPDATING THIS POST AND I WILL REBLOG IT WHEN I ADD TO IT! Feel free to comment things I've missed, I'm sure there's way more than this came from!

EDIT 1: Here's the link to the google doc! Link it on your webrings and sites! Share on twitter! <3 be free my little links!

WEB CENTRIC

CURLIE: THE COLLECTOR OF URLs (Curlie strives to be the largest human-edited directory of the Web. You can save sites and create your own mini webring!)

Internet Archive (A collection of over 818 Billion websites, books, movies, music, and more. Hosts the Wayback Machine, which can be used to access a multitude of sites, given they were indexed in time.)

Wiby (Human submission search engine for older webrings, as well as a how-to guide on how to develop your own search engine)

Unicode Text Converter (Easy way to make your text illegible to Google but be warned, it will make screen readers malfuction)

Embed Responsively (Easily convert links and embeds to work responsively within your site - perfect for neocities!)

Generator Land (Generate a list or prompt for just about anything!)

GifCities (Part of the Internet Archive, a special project done as part of the 20th anniversary in an effort to save data from GeoCities. Find a gif for just about anything!)

Animated Images (Another gif repository, though this one is easier to search and includes small animations.)

Gifs-Paradise (Another gif repository. I swear I collect these. Searchable and categorized.)

ASCII Art Archive (Database of ASCII Art, also known as text art)

Christopher Johnson's ASCII Art Collection (Another, arguably larger, ASCII Art database)

MelonLand (A web project and online arts community that celebrates homepages, virtual worlds, the world-wide-web and the digital lives that all netizins share, here at the dawn of the digital age. See their thoughts and the WEB REVIVAL they're starting.)

Sadgrl Webrings (Webrings brought to us by Sadgrl.Online - 60+ different ones to be exact) and Sadgrl Links (70+ links just like the ones in this post)

Districts at Neocities (Remember neighborhoods on Geocities? Imagine that but for Neocities!)

Neocities Banners (Banners from all across neocities. Blinkies, banners and more leading all over the web. Mostly 88x31, though there are bigger ones too. Technically counts as a webring.)

Blinkies.cafe (Site for blinkies where you can even make your own! I get most of my blinkies here and off DeviantArt.)

88x31 Collection (Possibly the largest collection I've seen for 88x31 buttons)

90's Cursor Effects (Want a funky cursor for your blog or website? Wanna be able to realtime preview what cursors would look like? Come get some code!)

The Malware Museum (Interact with malware and viruses from the 80s and 90s through emulation! No nasty virus interactions needed :D )

KNOWLEDGE BASES

Library Genesis - LIBGEN (Scientific journals - dedicated to archiving every science journal and their articles in existence.)

Information Mesh (A web platform celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web that explores social, technical, cultural and legal facts throughout different interactive timelines.)

Web Design Museum (Over 2,000 sorted websites showing web design trends from '96 to '06.)

The History of the Web (A twice monthly newsletter about web history, and the incredible people that built it. Goes from 1989 to present.)

Field Guide to Web Accessibility (Principles and applications to every day web scenarios in order to make the web a more friendly place!)

CARI - Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (an online community and collective association of researchers and designers dedicated to carrying on the important work of categorizing "consumer aesthetics" from the late midcentury, when work on the subject somewhat trailed off, through today.)

The Eye (Archive consisting of 140TB of books, websites, games, software, or anything else you can really think of.)

The Uncensored Library (A project from Reporters without Borders, where they use a loophole using Minecraft to distribute information.)

National Gallery of Art Public Domain (The National Gallery of Art has an open access policy for images of works of art in their permanent collection which the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available for download free of charge for any use, whether commercial or non-commercial.)

Library of Congress Public Domain (Features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.)

Public Domain Review (an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.)

New York Public Library Public Domain (Our digitized collections are available as machine-readable data: over one million records for you to search, crawl and compute.)

Official articles from NASA (PubSpace is NASA's designated public access repository. It is a collection of NASA-funded scholarly publications within the STI Repository, aiming to increase access to federally funded research in accordance with NASA Public Access Policy.)

Universal Hint System (Wanna get some vague help for an older video game without getting spoiled? Check out these awesome hints!)

Smithsonian Open Access (Download, share, and reuse millions of 2D and 3D digital items from their 21 museums, 9 research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.)

Instructables (Wanna know how to make just about anything? Check here!)

QZAP Zine Archive (Archive of LGBT+ Zines, began in 2003 with zines dating back all the way to the 1970s. NSFW AT TIMES, BROWSE AT YOUR OWN RISK.)

P!racy Masterpost (Tumblr-based masterpost of game piracy, last updated 2021. A bit old but some of the stuff there is still good. If this link breaks, please contact me.)

P!rated Games Megathread (masterpost created by r/P!ratedGames includes required components as well as anything else you need. NOTE: PLEASE HAVE SOME SORT OF PROTECTION WHEN NAVIGATING THIS SITE)

Geocities Gallery (A website hosting a working archive for many abandoned Geocities Sites.)

Snipplr (Code Snippet repository. Great for coding issues.)

GeoCities (Archived) (Great for searching ancient webrings for gifs and website ideas. Not so great for downloads.)

Freeware Guide (Archived) (The Freeware-Guide died sometime in 2021 [we think March] but it's still full of VERY valuable information. Links are broken pretty much all the way through, but the names of software as well as what they do can be useful in finding them elsewhere thru some google searching)

Peelopaalu (Where I got a good handful of these links - AND THERE'S MORE!!!)

The Simple Site (More links to so much more cool stuff!)

ART TOOLS

Untitled - Paint (An in-browser version of classic Microsoft Paint!)

KidPix (In-browser version of classic KidPix for the public domain!)

Pixel Logic - A Guide to Pixel Art (Comprehensive guide to making cool art for $10 USD, updated semi-frequently and you get all new versions for free)

SAI - Bootlegged (A version of SAI with a multitude of brushes and textures pre-installed. Quite literally the only thing I use to draw aside from Clip Studio Paint.)

Stripe Generator (Need some easy stripes for an art piece? Can't be bothered to try and space stripes evenly? This is for you!)

Photopea (Free online photo editor supporting files for Adobe Photoshop, XCF, Sketch App, Adobe XD, and CorelDRAW, as well as many more!)

blender (A FOREVER free and Open Source software for 3D Modeling, full of tutorials and assets. I feel like most people don't know it's completely free to play with)

Vertex Meadow (A web-browser tool that renders 2D images as explorable 3D terrain. With it you can create detailed and unusual 3D environments to explore using a 2D paint-program-like interface.)

OpenGameArt (Need art for your game but you're not an artist? Consider checking here first [or just hire a real artist looking for work on here!])

MUSIC TOOLS AND DISCOVERY

BandLab (Social music platform that enables creators to make music and share their creative process with musicians and fans. Completely free with an option to set up stripe where you get 100% OF PROFITS. Available for apple/android/desktop)

JummBox (Free online beat-maker with a very simple interface that runs on your browser)

Mydora (Mydora is a continuous streaming player that gives you a deep dive into the lost archives of Myspace Music, based on some recovered data called the Dragon Hoard, with some additional metadata (most notably the locations and genres) from a different scan of Myspace conducted back in 2009. Contains 490,000+ songs, only a fraction of what was wiped out.)

Radiooooo (A place where people are able to play hit songs from the decade of their choosing from whatever country they wish.)

WFMU (Independent freeform radio broadcasting. Currently ongoing.)

Gnoosic (A sort-of music search engine that finds you songs/bands based off of your music taste.)

Khinsider (3.1 TB worth of video game soundtracks)

Radio.garden (Listen to thousands of radio stations all around the world.)

FUN STUFF

FrogLand (The purpose of Frogland is to show that the Internet can indeed provide a wealth of useful information and still be fun. Mainly, this site is dedicated to the many teachers out there who are finding new uses for the Internet as a tool for educating youngsters. Hopefully, it will inspire some young minds to find new interest in herpetology, biology, and environmental issues...not to mention providing some inspiration for young future computer "wizzes"! No longer active but still useful.)

Windows 98 icon Viewer (Want clear jpgs of all the Windows 98 symbols and icons? They're all here!)

GifyPet (Create your own embeded pet that people can play with and feed when they visit your page! See my version HERE [only works on desktop tho])

Ultimate Mushroom (Like the idea of picking mushrooms in your area but no idea what to look for? Check out this info hub!)

Gif Gallery (Another gif repositiory, only sorted by being numbered 1-100,000. Fun and silly, not so much useful unless you're looking for random gifs. Part of the MelonLand Webring)

Interesting DOS Programs (A host of DOS programming, guides and links.)

Internet Archive: MS-DOS Games (8,000 games right in your web browser! Your browser can play DOOM!)

Tiled Backgrounds (Need some small jpegs for easy website bg tiling? Browse this collection sorted by color.)

cOOl & EMO tEXt cOnVERTer xXX (Flashing warning. Wanna type like you're in the 2000s? Need a funny Green Day lyric as a caption? This is probably the best place for you.)

0x40 (Flashing Warning. Anime images synced with music. Fun for parties, lol)

WebGL Fluid Simulation (In browser fluid simulator, great for art backgrounds and desktop wallpapers.)

Flashpoint (The biggest collection of preserved Flash Games and Animations)

NCase (Free games and open source projects from Nicky [THESE ARE REALLY COOL AND FUN, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND])

Your World of Text (A huge interactive text doc that anyone can add to anonymously.)

Text To Speech (TTS in more than 30 languages and over 180 voices.)

ASCII Art Generator (Make ASCII Art from any image.)

Petit Tube (Random Youtube videos with less than 10 views)

Noclip Website (Noclip around various video game maps in your browser!)

Monster Mash (Create and animate some monsters in browser! You can also download their files.)

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 6

Naruto idly tapped on his desk (the one directly in front of where Iruka lectured, which would theoretically make it easier for the Chuunin to catch him misbehaving), wishing the period would just finish already. He had clawed his way out of the bottom of the academic rankings to a respectable middling position, but he would still much rather be working on his aim.

Lately he had been spending almost all of his physical development time on throwing skills, after he'd noted that Mizuki-sensei was a goddamn prick and never pointed out his mistakes. He never seemed especially approving either- he'd give Naruto's poor katas the same nod he gave Sakura's technical perfection. He wasn't addressing either of their issues.

Naruto knew from watching his pretty (incredibly, mind-bogglingly, world-changingly pretty) classmate that her stamina was very poor and that she was lacking in muscle mass (even for the admittedly low standards for ten year old girls). Likewise, he knew that he tended to overreach and start his kata too quickly which ended up forcing him faster and faster. Speed was great, but he wanted to go at a speed he wasn't ready for and that ended up making his steps sloppy.

He probably wouldn't know the difference if Aiko hadn't pointed out his issues in the same casual way she told him it was his turn to take out the garbage. It wasn't good or bad, it was just being brought to his attention so that he could do something about it.

Ino (He took a moment to glare at the back of her head, long blonde hair swaying gently in the breeze from open windows) had been less diplomatic about his level. He was going to fight her one day too. Aiko was spending what seemed like every other morning working out with Ino.

He'd been invited, of course, but… he had other things to do. Like find out where Mizuki-sensei lived and smear the juice from a can of tuna fish under the table. (No matter how hard Mizuki-bastard scrubbed, his kitchen was going to gradually get stinkier and stinkier.) Naruto tried not to cackle overmuch in class. That had been yesterday- the Chuunin had probably only recently noticed the smell and was trying to find the source. Comedic gold, if only he could witness the frustration himself. An eraser suddenly appeared in him immediate vision and he jerked to the left to avoid it. 'Eh heh heh… Iruka-sensei looks kinda mad.'

"Stop cackling, Uzumaki. It's disruptive and just plain weird." With a mid-level stern glare (Naruto had made a mental chart, categorizing the severity of Iruka Glares) the Chuunin that didn't totally suck (Bite me, Mizuki-bastard!) went back to droning on about why you actually shouldn't aim for the jugular in a certain type of situation. It had something to do with bloodspray and tracking by scent?

For the next four minutes, Naruto was a model student.

Then he was tired of that.

Sasuke, that goddamn prick, was dutifully focused on the lecture. He never took notes, but he was always right when the teachers called on him. They called on him a lot- whenever Naruto or Kiba couldn't answer a question, Iruka would look to Mr. Perfect Hair. Smug bastard. Naruto broke a pencil in his fist, totally oblivious to the way that Shino gave him a mildly alarmed stare and inched away, beetles hiding deeper under his seasonally inappropriate coat.

Naruto shifted guiltily. It sucked to compare his academic performance to others. It was just so hard. 'Maybe if I worked like Aiko, I'd already be graduated.' The thought made him feel bad about himself, so he tried not to think it often. It was hard to not to make the comparison, though. She was his twin and they'd entered the academy the same year- should they be more alike?

It wasn't that Naruto didn't work at his ninja skills- far from it! He worked at it daily. But he just couldn't only be a ninja like Aiko. She didn't have any hobbies or downtime, and her workouts with Ino were probably the closest thing she had to a friendship. If she'd been someone else… well, he might have thought that she was cripplingly weird and too serious. She kinda acted like an old lady, (except for all the cursing, of course.)

That afternoon he rushed home, pinching the torn seam of his favorite black t shirt shut. (He was totally going to beat the shit out of Kiba next time they sparred, believe it!). 'I beat Aiko home,' he noticed dumbly when he shucked off his shoes. 'That almost never happens.' Aside from her one overnight mission, his sister was almost always home when he walked in the door. She generally went out to train again after the worst of the heat passed, but only after they had dinner. He felt like being helpful, so he started some tea before he tugged off his shirt and went in search of the little sewing kit Aiko had been forced to buy for her kunoichi class.

Naruto really didn't understand how she could be so incredibly bad at repairing her clothes, especially since she'd had to take a class on it. The things that girl could do with a seam just didn't bear thinking about, so Naruto generally clenched his teeth and did her mending in addition to his own.

"Oy, that tea fresh?"

"Yeah, but you don't get any because you're a cotton-headed ninnymuggins," he called back casually, fighting down the corners of his mouth. He heard his sister snicker from the other room- that one always made her laugh for some reason. Naruto wasn't entirely sure why. She'd taught him lots of bad words to call people and most of them didn't make her laugh at all.

Aiko wandered in from the kitchen (he hadn't even noticed her cross the room, when had she gotten so sneaky?) holding a cup of tea. "You look like doo," he casually commented, keeping one eye on his stitches and one eye on the way her right eye twitched. "I'm not sure what kind. Unimaginative bet is on dog doo, but I'm leaning towards sheep."

"Thanks, little brother. You always know just what to say." She flopped down onto the couch in a way that probably should have spilled hot liquid all over her. He'd been joking, but he hadn't really been lying. She must have come directly from her workout, because her bangs were still plastered to her forehead with sweat and he could see a line of bruises on the backs of her forearms- from blocking blows in a spar with a stronger opponent, probably?

He imagined that if he stared long enough, he would be able to watch him fade. Both of the twins healed quickly, but he never seemed to see it happen. It was almost as if bruises waited for him to lose interest before they scuttled off.

"What are you thinking about?" Her uncanny blue-green eyes were directed at him. Naruto loved his sister's eyes. They looked like what he imagined the ocean was.

"Crabs," Naruto said firmly. "Would you describe the way they move as a scuttle?" He waved his hands to demonstrate, light glinting off the needle in his fist.

"I've never met a crab," she said dryly. "When I do, I'll tell you all about it." Aiko kicked her feet up to rest on the arms of the couch, stretching one arm out precariously to set her tea cup down with a clink onto the side table. "Brother mine, love of my life, most clever and ki-"

"You're so full of shit it's coming out your ears," Naruto interrupted blandly, too focused on his mending to muster up an emotional response. "What is it you want mended?"

"I'll go get them." Aiko easily rolled off the couch and landed on just one foot, sliding into a walk without a moment's awkwardness. Naruto silently cursed his sister's coordination while she padded away to rustle around in the bedroom (they shared) and came back with what appeared to be a pair of her leggings. She tossed it at him, and he barely pulled them out of the air before they landed on his hair. "Please and thank you. "

"What's for dinner?" he called. He could practically sense his sister roll her eyes from the kitchen. She was clearly getting things ready- the icebox opened and closed, as did drawers and he could hear rustles. Then there was a knock on the door. Naruto blinked and then his sister was crouched beside him, frowning slightly.

"You expecting anyone?" she asked in an undertone. He shook his head, setting the needle aside and sliding a kunai out of his holster. Aiko gave him an approving quirk of the lips, moving to the door so quickly that she was just a blur of color. The tenseness in her shoulders fled as soon as she cracked the door and breathed deeply. "Um, hello sensei. Would you like to come in and have some tea?"

A tall man stepped through the door. 'He's weird looking,' Naruto marveled, putting his kunai away and picking his mending back up again. This was his first glimpse of Aiko's sensei. He was slouched over like Shikamaru, dressed like a Jounin, and had hair like he'd stuck a finger in a light socket. When the tall guy turned to pass one eye lazily over Naruto, the boy stiffened. The dark blue mask over his jaw moved slightly, but Naruto couldn't tell what expression was being made. "Maaa, Aiko," the old guy rumbled. "No tea, thank you. I came to tell you to get ready. We have a last minute mission."

"Duration?" Aiko asked briskly, draining her tea cup and starting towards the bedroom.

The old guy 'hmmmed'. "Oh, hard to say. We're tracking a Chuunin level missing nin. Should be an easy introduction into the craft. I'd pack light. We're going to be doing a lot of running."

"Is this why you've been pushing my speed so much?" Aiko called from the bedroom, sounding calm despite the sounds of frantic packing.

"Exactly." One dark eye drifted over to examine Naruto as if it could x-ray down to the thoughts in his head. Naruto scowled, crossing his arms and giving the intruder a stink-eye. 'Who does he think he is, budging in here and dragging Aiko away when she just got home?'.

His sister bounded back into the room, wearing twice the weapons she had been before and toting a navy blue knapsack. She nearly barreled Naruto over when she gave him a hug, grinning fiercely and poking his nose. "Eat your junk food tonight, but be sure to cook real food tomorrow, okay? Be good, stay safe, and don't prank Mizuki 'til I get back."

Naruto harrumphed, dutifully leaning back into the hug with his chin resting on her shoulder (and ugh, he was going to be taller than her one day soon, believe it!) and rolling his eyes. "Yes, mother," he drawled, pleased by the attention but too grown-up to tolerate it in front of a stranger. The old guy seemed to flinch, his one visible eye flickering to Aiko's bizarrely colorful hair. Naruto startled and gave the old guy a distrustful stare. He didn't like leaving his sister with a stranger, especially not one this weird.

Unfortunately, no one asked his very excellent opinion and the two ninja sped out of the apartment building, leaving him alone and bored.

Even with all the stamina and speed training she had done since graduation, Aiko had to grit her teeth to cope with the pain in her feet and weakness in her legs after a few hours of running without stop. Kakashi-sensei had been very certain that she had a lot of potential for speed, and it was one of the few things he actually trained her in. He'd been right, but the pace they needed to keep in order to gain ground on a ninja of a higher rank like a Chuunin was wearing on her quickly. Her hip, knee, and ankle joints were all screaming with pain by the time he allowed her to have a break, crouching to speak quietly with the brown, scruffy looking dog he'd summoned. In a moment, he dismissed the dog they'd been following and whipped through hand seals and summoned- is that a pug?

Aiko ignored the ninken that she was pretty sure would answer to 'Pakkun' and drained half a bottle of water, then gulping down a quick dissolve pill that should restore some of the salt she'd lost through sweat and reduce the amino acid burn from the run. She flopped to the forest floor and bent into a straight-legged stretch, trying to calm her heartrate and breathing through sheer force of will.

"Who is this?"

Aiko looked up at the surprisingly deep voice, somehow not surprised to see that the pug had invaded her personal space. When her teacher didn't speak up, she managed to catch her breath enough to briefly introduce herself. "Uzumaki Aiko, happy to meet you."

'Very happy. He's so cute! I wonder if it's too undignified for a ninken to snuggle?'

"Pakkun," the pug said simply. He snuffled at her side, causing her to yelp when she felt his cold nose through her thin shirt. "So this is-"

"My student," Kakashi interrupted smoothly. The dog gave him a look that indicated the two would be having a talk later, but let it slide. He pointedly nudged her tummy with his square head, and Aiko reflexively scratched behind his ears and stroked down his back. His fur was so sort- it was more like petting a bunny than a comparatively coarse dog. The girl couldn't help but smile. It was the first time she'd really met a dog in this lifetime, but the doggy scent he gave off was comforting and very familiar. Maybe she'd been a dog person in her past life.

'Did Pakkun know Kushina and Minato well enough to notice a connection with my scent?' Aiko pursed her lips. It looked that way, which would also explain her teacher's uncharacteristic interruption. He was often rude, yes, but generally through inaction like his failure to introduce the two parties than by actively doing something rude.

"Pakkun, we're on the clock," Kakashi drawled. "Make friends later."

"No respect," the small dog grumbled, reluctantly leaning out of her reach and sniffing around the area. "Yeah, I have the scent. We're damn close. Your prey is weak and slowing down, so we should be able to catch up within the hour at most. Why are you taking your pup on a hunt, boy?"

Aiko almost choked, eyes wider than what she could pretend was dignified. 'I don't think Pakkun talked to Kakashi like that in the manga,' she thought weakly. The idea of her strict teacher being referred to as 'boy'…. It didn't bear thinking about. Said teacher looked more amused than anything.

"Maa, Pakkun, I'm starting to think you don't trust my judgment. I wouldn't have brought the pup if I couldn't keep her safe. This should be an easy introduction to real missions, even if she is still out of shape despite months of my best work," he casually insulted. Aiko felt that eye twitch start up again. She willed the muscle spasm to stop. "Alright, break is over. Let's go." With a sigh, Aiko gave one last stretch and climbed to her feet. As the small group started running again, her teacher let the pug take point and slowed down to run beside her. "You know," he said quietly, "You're going to see your first kill. We don't bring missing nin back alive, but we can't allow them to go and make Konoha look weak either."

Momentarily stunned, Aiko struggled to find her footing on the next landing. Her teacher didn't comment, but she didn't fool herself into thinking he hadn't noticed. "I see," she managed. "I… I suppose that makes sense." It did make a terrible kind of sense. Kakashi was famous as both a ninjutsu specialist and a tracker, and he had spent roughly a decade in ANBU. Of course he got a lot of hunting missions.

"You're a good kid," he said quietly. "I just want you to remember why we're doing this. You got stuck with me for a teacher, so you unfortunately are going to pick up my specialties, like retrieval. This is just a run to gain experience for you. You're going to hang back, and if I assess that the situation is going poorly you will obey my orders immediately. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," she automatically replied.

His attention slid up front and he leapt ahead at the exact moment Pakkun gave a rough bark. A moment later (it might have been a quarter of a second or up to three whole seconds later, Aiko's brain seemed to have decided it wanted to process time in new and interesting ways) a lithe figure exploded from the tree tops, aiming a hard kick at Pakkun –the throat, it would have him choking in his own blood and knock him off the branch he was perched on, the fall was too far, he couldn't land safely. Her muscles moved without her knowledge to position her so that she could catch him if he fell. The dog couldn't possibly dodge it in time, but her sensei was suddenly there deflecting the blow and forcing her backwards with straight taijutsu.

Aiko felt like her eyes were about to pop out of her head, but she couldn't stop staring. She'd improved her speed by almost a hundred percent since she graduated, but what the fighters were doing was downright insane. She could barely keep track of them as flashes of dark and light and rustles of clothing flickering in the branches of the enormous Konoha trees.

It was damn hard to tell, but the Chuunin they'd been sent to retrieve (at least, that was probably the opponent, especially as she'd immediately aimed for the ninken tracking her) appeared to be a dark-haired woman of extraordinarily short stature. 'For some reason, I pictured a nondescript man in uniform.' Aiko tried not to wince. She hadn't really thought of the missing nin as a breathing human being- just a target, a filler character. 'He's going to kill this person,' she dully realized. A real person. She felt her breathing speed up, but couldn't control it. She leapt backwards, keeping both combatants in her vision but painfully aware that she was outclassed and had been told to stay out of the way.

She hadn't realized just how enormous the gulf between a genin and a Chuunin was. It had always seemed so easy and natural- that if she just kept working she would get there one day as a brief stop on the road to being a Jounin who could protect Naruto and herself. But this was insane.

Aiko knew damn well that her sensei was a monster among shinobi- one of the absolute best. But this woman seemed to be keeping up with him surprisingly well, despite the obvious signs that she was drained and desperate. 'She must be a taijutsu specialist,' the ten-year old hypothesized. And wasn't that counterintuitive- to see such a tiny woman holding her own in a physical fight against a tall man.

The whole encounter lasted perhaps twenty seconds and boasted at least three times as many blows, from her desperate charge to the instant when Kakashi slid under the woman's guard and dispassionately snapped her neck. 'A bloodless kill,' Aiko numbly registered. 'So that he doesn't bother Pakkun's nose. He must think we still need to do some tracking.' She only noticed she was shaking when her sensei shot her an inscrutable look.

"Pakkun, check ahead. If she set up traps, I want to disable them before we go. Aiko-chan, come here." She steeled herself, then leapt to her teacher's side with two agile jumps, remaining in a slight crouch over the lump of flesh that was a living breathing human being until very recently. "Do you know how we dispose of bodies?" he asked tonelessly.

'Sealing scrolls?' Aiko twitched, feeling her stomach roil. 'No, don't be stupid. That's an expensive resource, it wouldn't be used for a low-level nin like this. That would only be necessary to collect on a bounty.' She took a steadying breath. "We burn it?"

"Correct. Watch my hands." He steadily worked his way through six hand signs, then breathed in deeply through his nose and pushed one hand out, encased in a flickering orange flame that leapt to cover the body. In an instant, every inch of flesh was shimmering through orange fire- then it blackened, then there was a horrible stench and the corpse crumbled in on itself and burst into greasy ash. Aiko coughed, waving one hand in front of her face to try to keep from breathing the material in. Her sensei dispassionately flipped through three hand signs and blew out a harsh blast of air that scattered the remains through the tree tops.

'The metal didn't burn," Aiko observed. It had been distorted in the sudden heat, but she could still pick out buckles from boots, a thin sludge of what must have been hidden senbon, and two kunai from a thigh holster.

"That was strangely anticlimactic. She was here and now she's dust." Aiko stared blankly at the ash on the wind. A warm hand landed on her head, fingers gently rustling into her hair.

"Being a ninja isn't usually glamorous or climactic," he rumbled. "Most of it is quick, dirty and altogether unpleasant. The types of battles that kids play at in Academy- only the real elites fight that way. It's more of a vanity thing than practical."

"A dick measuring contest," she said without thinking. She actually felt her teacher stiffen. 'Ah, oops, probably not an age-appropriate metaphor,' she realized too late.

"Ah, I suppose," he said, sounding spectacularly uncomfortable. He gave a deep sigh. "Pakkun, report."

"All clear," the dog barked.

"Thank you," he said absentmindedly. The dog had just enough time to nod before he was dismissed. "All right," he sighed, pushing one hand through his hair. It got stuck and he had to tug it out. Aiko forced down an inappropriate smile. "Now we go home and report. Do you want to take a break here? You did well keeping up. I wanted to catch her before she got to the first town, where she might have caused more trouble and complicated the mission."

Aiko consciously didn't look at the branch they were standing on. "No, I'm good." She gave her teacher a weak smile, noting how weary and old he looked. She suddenly wanted to perk him up- he shouldn't look like that. He was only in his twenties. "Come on, old man" she teased, nudging his ribs with her shoulder. "I get it already, you're a total badass. Are you going to make me that fast?"

Her teacher snorted, shoulders relaxing imperceptibly before he took off in a blur of movement. She gave a cry of indignation and hurried to catch up. "You're years away from that," he taunted. "You can barely run in a straight line. I think you should master that before Jounin level taijutsu, eh?"

"I'd be happy if you'd teach me anything instead of beating on me all day," she faux-accused. She really was learning- it just wasn't the kind of thing she could show off. Becoming a faster runner and putting on muscle mass wasn't nearly as cool to demonstrate as crazy taijutsu or elemental jutsu.

She regretted the taunt when her teacher gave a low chuckle. "Well, if my cute little student needs to be taught, I suppose I can dream something up."

The next day, she reported for her promised training and was pleasantly surprised to get her primary element tested.

"Water?" Kakashi's mask moved as if he was biting at his lip (that really didn't hide everything, why had Team 7 been so irritated by it in the anime? It was just a thin piece of fabric). "Well, I'm no expert at that one but I suppose I can get you started. That's my least favorite element," he cheerfully announced.

"Gee, thanks," she grumbled, dropping the soggy paper to the ground. This was her least favorite part of the training ground- she hadn't come here since her accidental cat murder. She very carefully did not look at the scorched earth to her right. 'No one knows. No one will ever know.' She suppressed a twitch. It was like that Poe story with the beating heart. She just couldn't stop thinking about that goddamn cat. And it seemed like there was no way that Kakashi hadn't noticed her discomfort. 'Is that why we're at this specific part of the training ground? Is it just a coincidence? Is he trying to coerce me into confessing?'

"Don't worry, once you've mastered all the water jutsu in the world we can start you on a good element." Aiko drooped. 'Somehow that's not reassuring.' Her teacher coughed lightly. "Pay attention, Aiko-chan."

The technique he'd showed her was bizarre, ill-suited to Konoha's climate, and incredibly familiar.

"You want me to practice turning into a puddle of water," she said blankly, kicking at her sensei. He materialized from the puddle of –well, himself she supposed, and wasn't that ewwww- and grabbed her ankle, giving her a stern look. "I was envisioning something with some sort of combat potential. Or any kind of potential, really. I suppose that'll be useful if I ever get a mission to investigate the soles of rainboots."

"Don't be a smart ass, it doesn't suit you. Did you catch the hand seals?" Obligingly, he ran slowly through them one more time while she copied. "Good. This element transformation should come comparatively easily to you. More importantly, once you have this down, you'll be able to apply the same skill to summon a mist to hide in, make a water clone, and do a couple other nifty tricks, like causing rain in a small area."

Aiko blinked. "Oh," she said dumbly. "That actually does sound useful."

"It's almost like I'm your teacher or something," Kakashi drawled sarcastically. "The hard part is going to be chakra saturation- in order for this to work, you actually need both respectable reserves and the ability to manipulate almost all of it at once. You won't actually lose most of it in the jutsu, but it needs to be transformed from the neutral state to water type."

Aiko found herself alone on the training ground long after her sensei had slunk away for the night, incredibly frustrated. "Why can't I make this fucking jutsu work?" she outright hissed, flinging her hands up and desperately wishing for something or someone that she could hit.

Too stubborn to give up, she abandoned her normal workout routine for the night in order to concentrate on getting down the one jutsu her sensei had trusted her to learn. She thought that she had the first part down, at least.

After hours of trial and error, she could now transform the neutral chakra at her stomach, head, and other main gates into water natured chakra easily and quickly. Seeing as how that didn't do anything, however, it clearly became obvious that it wasn't enough. After that it was a rush to either flood her chakra coils with the new water natured chakra or concentrate on changing the lingering remnants of chakra in her coils in the same way she'd changed the stored chakra. Unfortunately, the first method seemed to require an exact speed of release that she hadn't mastered, and the second method seemed to require more concentration than she could boast of. If she focused on the floating chakra, her reserves faltered back into their neutral state.

'I'm going to figure this out if it kills me,' she vowed. She'd never failed at a jutsu before, and she wasn't about to start now.

Kakashi slouched a little further, silver hair tickling the back of his neck. He really needed to do something about it. Eventually. "I admit I had doubts about taking a fresh genin out hunting, but she performed well in the field. She displayed a relatively healthy reaction to seeing a kill under controlled combat conditions. It doesn't seem far-fetched that she could be trained as part of a hunter unit. My initial reservations about whether or not that'd be a waste of a potential front-line type still stand, however. She'll probably excel in either specialty."

The Sandaime Hokage smiled, giving the reporting Jounin his full attention for a split second while he was switching out stamps. "Excellent, Kakashi-kun. I am glad to hear it. I've always heard good things about Aiko while she was in the Academy, but of course that doesn't always translate to field performance."

"Actually, she's weirder in the village," Kakashi mumbled, trying not to think too much about why his student got so damn twitchy every time they went to training ground 7. It was probably safer not to know. He lowered his book to address the Hokage directly, but still held Icha Icha up high enough to obscure most of his face. "But her work ethic is satisfactory. I have been concentrating on her speed and endurance. I would say she's actually on par with experienced Genin in those two areas. She's a rank beginner in taijutsu, of course, and her weapons aren't much better. Now that I'm momentarily satisfied that she can be trusted to make it to a mission, I'm teaching her some mostly evasive jutsu so that she doesn't get skewered by someone out of her league. That would be everyone, of course."

"And to think you claimed you didn't want to train genin for so long," Sarutobi pointed out, not bothering to hide his smile.

Kakashi gave him an uncharacteristically sharp look. "I don't," he said shortly. "But Minato's kids deserve to be taught right. Aiko has her mother's chakra type, which probably makes her our only water type in that generation. I was never good at Kushina's whirlpool style jutsu, but I can teach it to her well enough. She deserves that legacy." He turned his face away from the Hokage's partially sympathetic and partially frustrated expression.

"She isn't her parents," Sarutobi said, a little harshly. He narrowed his eyes, gave the Jounin his full attention and even focused a little bit of intent in his direction. "You understand that?"

"Yes, of course." Kakashi's head twitched into something an optimist might term an incline. "Is that all, Hokage-sama?"

[theshirohi]

"He never took notes" I want to call secret sharingan usage but I'm sure someone, somehow would -know- perhaps some sheer focus with a genetic selection for people with good memories.

"If she’d been someone else.." srsly if that ain't family.

MMm the first kill witness. Things a coming to a boil.

“She isn’t her parents,” - mmm I have to excise a lot of personal comments on this. but it is of course fascinating how someone's opinion of A reflects on their opinion of B (when A and B are blood relations)

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 5

"Good news, minion. You get your first C-class mission."

An orange wobbled dangerously and then escaped the brown paper bag she was carrying. Before she had time to even yelp, her teacher had caught it with one hand and gently placed it back on top. "Are you serious?" Aiko tried to keep both the incredulousness and the hope out of her voice. Almost two months of mind-numbing manual labor had all but beat the hope for better missions out of her. Her teacher gave a deep chuckle as a warm hand came down on top of her hair and messed it up. She turned her head slightly to glower, not willing to give him the reaction he wanted. "What's that supposed to do, my hair is already a mess," she deadpanned.

"So uncute," he sighed. His hand left her head to turn a page. "We have a mission scheduled for two days from now."

He didn't seem to be joking. "Why would we know about it so far in advance?" she asked, curious.

"Oh, I need to whip you into shape first."

'Why does his voice have to sound so damn good saying such awful things?' Aiko felt herself deflate. "Mean sensei. I'm not fat."

"Never said you were," he said easily. "But I need to be sure you have the stealth to sneak past sleeping civilians."

"Ouch," she groused, feigning pain in her heart. "That hurts me right here, sensei." She rearranged her grip on the bags she was holding. "Could you knock for me? Thank you." When the door opened, the tired woman standing there looked ridiculously grateful. As soon as her hands were free, Aiko rubbed at her aching arm muscles while the client rustled in her purse for a tip. Without even looking up, the civilian woman stuck out a leg in a ninja-worthy move that stopped the toddler behind her from escaping into the street. "Thank you ma'am, have a nice day!" She bowed politely, eyeing the pig-tailed vermin that was struggling futilely towards the open door.

As soon as the door shut, Kakashi sardonically commented, "If only my student was that cute. How did I get stuck with such a serious brat?"

"Yeah, whatever old man. Maybe if you were as pretty as she was, I'd wear pigtails," Aiko shot back. "We both got the short end of the stick." She didn't really believe that, but she'd hate to compliment him before he really taught her anything.

"I'm not old," he said, sounding honestly perplexed. She didn't buy it for a moment.

________________________________________

Stealth training turned out to be just another excuse for Kakashi-sensei to be a giant dick, Aiko concluded the next morning when she showed up for training. "This is all just a joke to you, isn't it," she said flatly, handling the 'supplies' as if they were poisonous. The paper, ink, and perfume very well could have been, but they weren't this time. She would have preferred poison.

He hmmed. "Not at all, Aiko-chan. I think that this will gage your skill quite nicely. If you can sneak past your age counterparts in the Academy, you can almost certainly sneak past civilians."

"But this?" she said miserably, staring at the pink paper.

"Think of it as incentive. You'll be extra careful not to get caught leaving embarrassing love notes, won't you?"

"You're a sick bastard."

"What was that?" He perked his head. "You want to leave one for Hyuuga Neji? And his cousin Hinata too, how daring. I'm sure Hiashi won't mind at all if you break into his home to double-time his heir with his nephew." A single leaf blew past them on the street. For a hysterical moment, Aiko thought that it should have been tumbleweed instead. She swallowed, feeling herself begin to sweat just a little bit. There was no way she could sneak around the Hyuuga estate. And Hinata's dad… Well, he might literally kill her and blame it on the Inuzuka or something.

"Your hair looks great today, sensei. Did I mention that earlier? And wow, have you lost weight?"

"Very funny. Get to work writing your great romance, hime. I'll be checking them."

They didn't meet again until well after sunset at 11:30. Once he was finally satisfied with both the wording and scent ("You 'admire' this person? How unoriginal. Wouldn't you say that he lights your heart on fire, or that you drown in the ocean of his eyes every time you look into them? No, the fact that his eyes are brown is irrelevant." and "You're lucky I'm not making you use your own perfume, even a thick Academy student might figure that out"). He had her break into the Academy to copy some student records. In the first remotely considerate move he had made that night, Kakashi let Aiko choose her targets instead of picking them for her. She didn't spend too long trying to figure out A. Who she thought she could sneak past and B. who wouldn't embarrass her if she were to be caught. As they ran to the first house, he mused "Do you think they'll be flattered or frightened to wake up to a love note on their pillows?"

'and why do they have to be left directly on pillows, instead of just beside the bed?' The girl knew better than to say things like that aloud. Her sensei would only think of some new and exciting restriction- like the note had to be taped to the recipient's face, or she could only hop on her left foot or something.

"No matter what happens, I'm hoping that they're not flattered enough to try and figure it out," Aiko muttered. It wasn't entirely impossible that one of them could track her down. 'I only wish I could see Ami's face when she realizes someone stood next to her bed while she slept. Maybe she'll straighten up after a shock to the system like that.' She was the first target. The girl had never bothered Aiko herself, but that was more because Aiko didn't exude weakness than because Ami was kind.

All five note drops went off without a hitch, thankfully. Aiko even took a single strand of hair from each recipient/victim for incontrovertible proof. Kakashi must have a nose like a dog, because he sniffed each one to verify (and why was he familiar with the smells of academy children?). She finally finished at what must have been two a.m.

Her teacher seemed to want to be responsible for once, walking her all the way home. "So, what have you learned?"

"My former classmates need better security," she said flatly.

"And?"

"And that I do have the necessary skills to sneak past an average civilian."

"Hmm. Exactly." He yawned, clearly disinterested in her. "Here's a life lesson for you—improve your traps so you aren't an easy target like that."

"Thanks for saying goodbye," she muttered to the space where he had been until an instant ago. Aiko sighed, rubbing under her tired eyes with one hand while she jiggled her key in the door. She fell in bed fully dressed, feeling pathetically grateful that tomorrow wasn't one of her early mornings where she met with Ino for a workout.

She woke up with a note taped to her forehead. It was unsigned, but it said, "Improve your traps."

They left for their first C-class mission as a team in the evening. Aiko had debated over what to bring for a while, but ended up only filling her leg holster and attaching the weird hip/lower back pouch that was standard equipment for other travel supplies. Her sensei raised a sardonic eye at her when they met at the gate. "What, no tent or sleeping roll?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's too warm for it to be worth carrying. We're only going to be gone one night, and I'm wearing long sleeves."

He chuckled. "Practical."

Their mission was one by request of the Fire Daimyo himself. Apparently he was trying to cheer up his wife, who had recently suffered a death in the family. Aiko was torn- on one hand, it seemed sweet to make a grand gesture of affection. On the other hand, said gesture was stealing a jewelry set from a noblewoman who had snubbed the Lady in court.

'Rich people are fucking weird,' she eventually decided.

Still, if it paid the bills, it wasn't her job to complain about little things like morality. The dossier had claimed that the jewels had been stolen, (as if it was important to improve how bad the request looked to paid assassins, she'd scoffed) but Aiko didn't believe that for a red-hot minute.

"I'll be following to insure your safety," Kakashi said quietly from his position behind her. She peered at the courtyard walls from her location in the shadows. "But this is your operation. You know your route?"

"Yes," she replied, just as quietly. Then she switched to handsigns. Aiko rather imagined she could feel him stiffen in surprise- he hadn't taught those to her. She repressed a smirk- she'd asked Iruka sensei to teach her. He had been too busy, but she'd gotten tutored in it by the woman who had helped her with court-style calligraphy (she had had a lot of time back in the Academy to spend in specialization classes, since she had spent two years sitting out of taijutsu practice).

I take left path. Go now?

He signed back, Go.

She darted across the grounds, setting on palm on the wall and then flipping up and over into the inner courtyard. Her landing in an iris garden was quiet-luckily she tapped down onto the stone pathway and not in the plants themselves. In the instant of stillness, she observed the courtyard- a luxurious koi pond crossed with a bridge and dotted with large rocks under a tree peony, surrounded by moss and light-colored rocks, and a smoothly manicured lawn dotted with tiny shrines.

Aiko was hidden within the shadows of the pagoda roof before a civilian could have seen her. In the space between heartbeats her sensei was beside her, looking feline and dangerous instead of vaguely sleepy as he usually did. Silently she tapped across the tiles, making her way to the window she had noted on the floor plan. She slipped into the second floor guest bedroom easily and leapt onto the ceiling to speed into the target's suite. It was even darker inside, so she took a long moment to let her vision adjust.

The layout wasn't complicated, but she was still thankful she had been able to see a rough floor plan before entering. Her entry point had only been two hallways away from where she almost certainly needed to be. The mission report had described the court lady they were stealing from as someone who would likely keep her jewels close- she didn't trust her staff.

The target, a slim woman of about thirty with long black hair, was sleeping peacefully in the bedroom… and so were the two other women in the bed with her. Aiko felt red heat spread over her ears and neck. She tried to suppress the impression that Kakashi was silently cackling at her. That was rather a lot of flesh showing, even with the blue silk sheets draped over (most of) them. Only a few feet from the heavy breathing of her target, she pawed through drawers, being certain to put everything exactly where it had been and touch as little as possible. She was wearing gloves, but it would be best not to leave her scent if she could help it. Good habits and all that.

'That's it!' Aiko wrapped the necklace, bracelet and earring set in the thin towel she'd prepared and tucked it into her pouch. It was actually rather pretty- black stones set in delicate silver filigree. Getting out was just as easy as getting in had been. At one point she stopped entirely on her ceiling perch and held her breath while a petite girl walked by clutching what looked like a pitcher of water.

She didn't speak until they were a good ten miles away, speeding back towards Konoha. The adrenaline rush left her, and Aiko felt weary. That was strange- the active part of the mission had only taken about an hour from start to escape. Maybe it was just nerves?

"That went well," her teacher commented. She was disoriented enough by her first real mission to smile up at him. "Maybe you'll be ready for real missions soon."

"I thought this was a real mission."

He gave her a mildly disbelieving look. "Stealing from sleeping civilians without so much as a hired thug bodyguard?"

Aiko shrugged. "Better than walking dogs."

His lone eye narrowed in a way that indicated he was thinking. She tried not to shiver, and hoped she hadn't given him any more ideas for cruel and unusual training.

________________________________________

"I can't believe you had a real mission!" Naruto bounced around the kitchen, almost too excited to do what she told him. It took a glare to remind him that he was meant to be dicing vegetables. She quickly finished using the other cutting board to thinly slice the beef, and then set it in a sizzling pan.

"Nah," she demurred, turning to wash her hands thoroughly. "It wasn't so great. How was class today?" Her brother pouted, casting a dirty look at the small pile of books on the couch.

"Ne, it was terrible!" Aiko kept one ear open to her brother's complaints- something about Ino and glue? – while she worked on the rest of dinner. She gently lifted the lid off the rice pot and checked to be sure it had been soaking long enough before she turned the heat on. Aiko frowned slightly. "Wait, I'm confused. Where did Hinata even get live kunai?" The beef was starting to smell fragrant, so she agitated the pan and turned the meat over.

She could practically hear Naruto's shrug in his answer. "I don't know, but it was the best thing ever!" He fell silent for a second. "Hey, Aiko? Do you remember Sakura-chan?"

"Of course," she said easily. "What about her?" Inwardly, she tried not to wince. 'Please don't be that crush already…'

Of course that was too much to hope for.

"She's really pretty," Naruto said dreamily, propping his chin up on his hands. "Sakura-chan always smells nice and she's so smart at school and have you ever seen pink hair before on anyone else? She's amazing."

Aiko didn't bother to hide her wince. There was no point, Naruto didn't pay attention to cues like that anyway. "No, her hair is unique," was the most diplomatic answer she could choke out. "But Naruto-kun… She isn't very nice, you know."

"She is so," Naruto muttered. Then he brightened up. "Maybe I can impress her with my ninja skills! She's always looking at Sasuke like he' so cool. When I beat him, she'll like me instead!"

Aiko bopped him on the head with a clean wooden spoon. "That's not the way affection works," she scolded. Then a thought occurred. 'I could use this to motivate him…'

Slyly, the slightly older twin acted as if she'd just remembered something. "Sakura does really well in academics, right? You'd have to do well there to impress her, as well as taijutsu. She's the kind of girl who respects strength and…" Aiko grimaced. 'That isn't true, strictly speaking. Strength is more a by-product of what Haruno finds attractive.' "Well, she actually likes people who she thinks are cool. People who are self-assured, good looking, and stuff like that. She isn't going to like anyone who can't keep up with her."

Naruto slumped over the table. "So mean, nee-chan." He cracked one eye open to peer miserably up at her. "It's not my fault I'm not good at school work!"

"Not exactly, no." Aiko gave him a one-handed squeeze. "You have a lot of energy and a short attention span, which makes school work difficult. But you could be working a lot harder than you do. You know perfectly well that skipping class and planning pranks when Iruka is talking is going to hurt your scores, but you do it anyways. If you want to impress Sakura, start there."

"I guess," Naruto said unhappily. He retrieved his history textbook and looked at it as if it was about to bite him. Aiko nudged him gently with a shoulder. "What's the assignment?"

"The class is supposed to read chapter 7," he dully informed.

Aiko frowned at the strange wording. "The class is?"

"Yeah, I haven't finished chapter 2 yet. I don't understand any of it," he whined. Aiko sighed. "Give it here." She flipped it open. "We can read together and talk about it as we go. You remember conversation much better than things you've read."

Naruto's decision to impress Sakura with his intellect didn't exactly work. For one thing, he'd been at the bottom of rankings for long enough that it would be impossible for him to make it to the top of the class. For another, he didn't really have the aptitude for that kind of study anyways. He wasn't as diligent as he'd intended to be when he started studying for real, but with frequent reminders to study (and of why he was studying, however painful Aiko found the idea herself) helped to keep him afloat. The sudden improvement had probably terrified poor Iruka, Aiko realized one day. He would be just waiting for the massive prank that an apparent switch in personality was leading up to. It might have been kinder to put tacks on his chair so he stopped thinking that Naruto was trying to lull him into letting his guard down.

Her brother had actually put a temporary halt to pranks on his sensei, under the rationale that there were people who deserved to be pranked much more and that it would be a waste of his incredible skills to focus on one person. By this time, three months had passed since Aiko became a genin. Kakashi had yet to teach her a single jutsu, she had been on exactly one C-class mission, and he hadn't done much to improve her other base skills either. She found that her routine was much the same as it ever had been. He sure had a strange way of teaching. He'd given her a few pointers on water-walking after she had finished tree climbing, and could be counted on to give her at least one taijutsu spar daily. Unfortunately, it was usually more like a 'beat-down' than a spar, but he gave pointers and she worked on her free time to incorporate his suggestions.

She had been right with her original assessment: being without a team was lonely, and since Kakashi didn't seem to want anything to do with her, he didn't make up for the absence. Aiko continued to do what she knew how to do—she improved her aim, chakra control, ran a lot, attempted to build some muscle mass, and played around with wire and chakra strings. Her improvement since the academy was notable. In a way, Kakashi's laid back teaching style might have been working for her. If she'd just gotten powerful jutsu, she might not have spent as much time improving her base shinobi skillset. Every shinobi needed to be at least competent in those areas beyond genin level- Namikaze Minato had made speed an incredible weapon, legends like Kakashi and Itachi used basic tools like kunai, and ninja like Lee managed to be formidable without a single jutsu.

In other words, she could be a freaking legend even if she never learned another jutsu, but she'd get herself killed in thirty seconds flat into real combat if she couldn't move quickly enough to dodge.

She tried to keep that in mind when a snickering Chuunin handed her a mission scroll detailing her new D-class mission gathering herbs from the forest immediately surrounding Konoha. 'Kakashi-sensei knows what he's doing,' Aiko gritted through her teeth while she murderously popped the heads off of the purple flowers she was collecting.

________________________________________

"I have no fucking idea what I'm doing," Hatake Kakashi chuckled to a former ANBU colleague one night after yet another day of lazing around reading while his short pers- student, he definitely meant student- completed easy missions. Really it wasn't so bad. It was like a vacation, only with a midget and no hotel sex. Kakashi frowned at the thought, suddenly unhappy with this 'teaching' gig again. Across the table, Tenzou tried not to look too aghast at the thought of his sempai with a small child. Kakashi-sempai was his hero, really he was! His sempai was incredibly strong, he was the most intelligent man that Tenzou knew, he was an excellent commanding officer, and he always smelled so damn manly. But…

"Training a fresh genin is probably not much like training ANBU," Tenzou ventured as a guess. He didn't exactly have much experience with kids. Like Kakashi, he had been drafted directly into the program at such a young age that he'd never known anything different, and certainly hadn't had peers.

Kakashi shrugged easily, swiping his cute little kohai's last stick of yakitori and jamming it into his mouth so quickly that the kid didn't even notice his mask had come down. "How different can it be? We're all adults here."

Tenzou valiantly resisted the face-palm, but he just didn't have the willpower. By the time he managed to look up, his sempai was gone and a receipt was slowly falling to the table. "What the…" Tentatively, he reached out and snagged it. Then his face turned indignant. 'I don't want to pay for his meal! Besides, who drinks at this hour anyway?!'

[theshirohi]

the reparte is always good. Kakashi n Aiko, dynamic duo without the screaming of "dynamic en-ter-yyy" really can just sit back and watch the trolls wars

“I have no fucking idea what I’m doing,” ah the whip-pan contrast

I'm contractually obligated to say I hate slice of life, but I enjoy the peaks into like helping Naruto study and Kakashi taking advantage of Tenzou for a meal. [cutting out a lot of brain vomit] I'll just chalk it up to writer magic skillz that everything is so engaging and I've never been bored.

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 4

The Academy classroom had long been emptied. The lone girl inside had long ago eaten her bento and it was almost time for dinner. It was dark outside, and those goddamn crickets just wouldn't shut up. For a long, terrible moment, Aiko gave serious thought to senbon practice. But that would be ridiculous. She couldn't possibly kill all the noisy bugs in the world, could she?

'I could try,' she thought darkly.

Luckily, that was when the classroom door slid open and a man who could only be Kakashi stepped in, nonchalant as you please. She lifted her head off the desk and swiveled to look at him. Aiko's eyes narrowed. He'd made her wait far longer than the anime had indicated. Was it because he was testing her especially harshly, a simple coincidence, or just because he was less ready to deal with his dead sensei's child?

"My first impression… you're a shrimp."

"And mine is that you're an inconsiderate asshat!" she snapped. Then she slapped a hand over her mouth and flushed. 'There goes the good impression…'

He seemed stunned by being called 'the hat of the ass' (so it didn't translate well, whatever), but recovered in time to tell her to "Meet me up on the roof."

And then he was gone in that damned smoke. She coughed, waving it out of her face. Instead of heading down the hall to the staircase, she pushed the window open and cautiously swung out onto the ledge, slowly and carefully walking up the side of the building.

She'd had more than enough time to try tree-walking before, after all. It wasn't exactly kept secret, and she knew of other Academy students who had been able to perform the chakra exercise, like Hinata. She should be able to do this for three stories if she concentrated. Even at her cautious pace, she'd save about five minutes off the walk. 'He's probably counting on some time to read before I get there,' she thought with a little too much glee at the thought of thwarting him. Her foot slipped once on the crumbly brick surface, but she quickly regained her footing. Aiko curled her fingers around the metal bar at the top of the railing on the roof and kicked outward to flip over it entirely and land semi-gracefully.

'Best part of being born in this awful place. I would be a great gymnast, if the ninja thing doesn't work out.'

Her sensei looked up from his book, completely bored. "Maaa, took you long enough. Alright. Tell me about you." He monotoned, flipped a page, giving the impression that the question was standard and that he didn't care in the slightest.

Aiko felt an eyebrow twitch. She'd known what to expect, but he was just so rude. "Uzumaki Aiko, as you damn well know. I'm ten and I like my brother. I'd ask about you, but I bet you wouldn't answer."

He stood, ignoring her. "Well, now that we know each other, I should tell you about the genin test. It's pretty funny, actually." He chuckled darkly.

From an adult perspective, he was clearly being theatrical for some nefarious reason.

"Let me guess, one out of three or some other ridiculously high number fails, then I panic and you disappear before I can ask questions. Spooky spooky." She wiggled her fingers at him, distinctly unimpressed.

'What kind of adult gets that much amusement out of psyching out a kid? Does he really not want to have anything to do with genin? Is he trying to get rid of me?'

Kakashi frowned at her, wrinkling his mask. "I don't like you. Meet me at training ground seven at five am." Then she was alone on the roof.

"Well, that was a fantastic waste of my time." She paused for a long moment. "And where is training ground seven?"

That night, she and Naruto ate raw cookie dough instead of dinner and watched tv. It wasn't very good- she recognized it as some sort of monster movie, but it definitely wasn't one she was familiar with from her old world. Sometimes she thought this place was some weird splinter reality from Japan- the language was similar and shared vocabulary, and she recognized several of the legends. The technology was completely inexplicable, though. It wasn't very advanced from her perspective, but it was still strange it had developed along some similar lines.

Kakashi relaxed in his perch in a tree above the clearing in training ground seven. As five am came and went without a student in sight, he started to wish he'd spent more time at the memorial stone. His one normal eye was fixated on his book even now, when there was no one to act for. His other senses were scanning the area rigidly, however.

He'd wondered what Minato's kids were like. It had been years since he had been enough of an ANBU rookie to work protection detail in-village. Sure, he'd seen glances of them from a distance, but that didn't tell him much. Well. Okay, it did—he saw that the boy was loud and mischievous in a way that pained him –likeObitoObitoObito- though his apparent stupidity was baffling, where had that come from? The girl was much quieter. Someone seemed to be taking care of them, as they appeared well-fed and dressed. They were each painful to look at in their own way- the boy was like a tiny Minato clone with Kushina's exuberant personality. The girl looked like a perfect blend of her parents' coloring with what he fancied was Minato's serious mien.

The child he was thinking about meandered into his space of awareness and he lowered Icha Icha Sexy to eye her. She was dressed much the same as yesterday. It was a strange combination of minimalism and that eye-gouging yellow (andthathaircut, it was like Minato's coincidenceornot?). Today he spotted a single weapons pouch secured to her leg, which was an improvement. He'd wondered if she fancied herself good enough at taijutsu to not need any weaponry.

His leg twitched. His body was clearly eager to get back to the stone (taking an apprentice was a painful parallel; what would Sensei think would he laugh Kakashi-kun you have no patience), but he'd wanted to see her when she thought she was unobserved to get a read on her. He wasn't sure what it meant that she wandered in six minutes late, seemingly unconcerned about disobeying her first order from a superior officer. The child didn't even look around for him.

Kakashi felt a little affronted- she shouldn't be jaded enough to assume there was no way he'd show up on time yet- and pouted from his perch while she unloaded what looked like a bento (yum, perhaps he'd borrow that) and slipped off her sandals before engaging in what looked like the strangest warm up he had ever seen. He almost considered uncovering his other eye to try to find some sort of meaning in the way she folded over with her hands on her feet, then slid them to the ground and stepped back to some sort of plank. 'Maybe a stretch?' The 24 year-old shifted uncomfortably. 'No point in spending much time here,' he decided, leaping away silently. 'I can't fail her. Hokage-sama made that clear'.

The Hokage had actually forcibly retired him from ANBU specifically for this assignment, actually. He wasn't sure if it was sentimentality or vicious practicality. He was, after all, the last living person to be familiar with both of her parents' techniques. A lot of Kushina's were unique and couldn't be performed by someone outside the bloodline. Reviving those techniques would do a lot for village morale and how they looked to enemies. Having not one but two children from the union of two of the greatest heroes of the last war—well, those kids were resources the Sandaime would have had to be crazy to waste. That wasn't her fault, of course. He was still going to punish her by making her wait.

He wasn't ready to confront living reminders of how he'd failed everyone he'd ever loved.

When the itch on the back of her neck left, Aiko breathed a sigh of relief. It was probably paranoia, but she'd felt like she was being watched. 'Don't be stupid,' she scolded herself. 'You're just excited about beginning real training.'

When her warm-up was done, she tried to kill time by running through handseals to improve her dexterity and accuracy. When her fingers began to feel sore, she performed from stretches on the ground. Then she paced for a while, wishing she had brought a book. She had a short spar with a tree, pretending it was Neji. Then she climbed the Neji-tree only using chakra in her hands and hung upside down on a branch from her knees. Her sensei didn't announce his presence so much as suddenly appear directly in front of her face.

Aiko shrieked in surprise, reflexively batting at him and swinging away to crouch on the tree trunk. She didn't hit him, of course, but he seemed mildly amused by the attempt. "Maah, what kind of greeting is that?" He pretended to look sorrowful.

"The kind you merit," she said dryly, "You creeper. Seriously, why would you pop up in my face like that?"

"I had no idea you were here," he lied easily, "I was too distracted by heavy thoughts. You see, I found a poor stray mama cat who had lost her kittens and I helped her track them all down, but now I'm thinking that perhaps I should have escorted them all the way back to their home."

There was a long moment of silence.

'I can't believe he really says things like that' was warring with 'if the cat is a stray, what home is she going to?'

She swallowed all comments. "I see." Aiko wished she knew what to expect. Obviously, she couldn't be tested on teamwork like the original team seven would be, since she had no team per say. What else did Kakashi care about in students? Dedication and insight, perhaps.

"Today… We will be sparring until I can determine the extent of your capabilities." Kakashi eyed the sudden slump of his student's shoulders and wondered if that meant she disliked sparring or that he'd disappointed her expectations. No matter. "Come at me with intent to kill." He chuckled lowly just for effect. "Trust me, you'll need to be trying your best." He raised his visible eyebrow when she remained completely still, gazing at him impassively. "Well?"

Then she attacked. After a few moments to get his bearings and merely blocking her blows (she hit like a girl her age, but a relatively strong one) he adjusted the level he was fighting at to mid-chuunin levels so that he could easily overpower her without hurting her too badly.

He thought he had overestimated her for a second when a punch sent her reeling, but her quick recovery turned her retreat into a side-step attempt to flank him. He didn't let it work, but he noted that she seemed to have a good understanding of the fact that she had no chance of defeating him head-on. That showed some tactical thinking. She didn't look irritated that her feint failed- as if she'd never expected it to. Her taijutsu was acceptable genin levels. 'I can work with that, at least.'

He could see the moment she decided to switch tactics- largely because her eyes narrowed and her chakra rose up.

She created three bunshin copies of herself and then did a kawarimi with one of them in the smoke –not too bad—and then all girls simultaneously used kawarimi not once but twice (this reminded him of that game with rice under a cup, he'd always been good at the game. The trick was seeing when the rice was taken out.)

Just as he'd suspected, she had made a fourth clone at some point and they all rushed him. The girl herself was clinging to a tree and drawing out a shuriken in each hand. The instant he'd destroyed the second clone was when she released the projectiles in a line aimed at his face. He dodged with a faint smile.

'So that's genin-level taijutsu, decent aerial weaponry skills, some tactical thinking… What about genjutsu?'

In an instant he disappeared from her field of vision. He could sense her vitals spike in alarm and restrained a chuckle. Oh, cute. He whipped through the symbols for a standard Hell-Viewing technique and used the movement of leaves in the wind to catch her in it. She wavered on her perch on the tree—and for one second he moved forward to catch her, he should probably have waited for her to be on the ground—but she outright yelled "KAI" and shook her head, looking disgruntled. She regained her footing but he was already below her. She chose to kick off and fall directly at him, kunai in hand.

He smirked. Instead of side-stepping and letting her hit the ground, he looked up calmly and snatched her right out of the air, grabbing her under her arms then switching his grip almost immediately to her upper arms, which he twisted behind her and used to easily force her to the ground. Her chest hit the dirt with an 'Oof!' and he kept her there with a foot planted on her back. She huffed irritably and turned her face to glare at him with one eye. He smiled mildly down at her.

There was a sudden burst of weak killing intent and she began to struggle. Kakashi frowned. "Hey now, don't do that," he chided. "You could break something when I'm holding you like this. Admit when you've lost."

"Yes, sensei," she scowled. "I give up."

"That's what I was looking for." He released her and stepped back, calmly watching her regain her footing and snap to attention. "Well," he began contemplatively, tapping his chin, "It's a shame… but I'll guess you'll have to do." He watched her reaction- what kind of kid had she grown up to be? She rolled her eyes, but didn't look all that affronted. That was acceptable. He didn't want to be stuck with a brat who got their hackles up at everything.

He stepped away, then looked over his shoulder as if his next statement was an afterthought. "I suppose I should tell you to meet me at Hokage Tower at eight am tomorrow to get your first mission." He lazily raised one hand, then flickered away, eager to be away from the gir—his student. Ugh, what a terrible thought.

Aiko considered dragging herself home, feeling soreness in pretty much every muscle she had. Taijutsu with a Jounin was not fun, not fun at all. She felt tired and not exactly eager… Meeting with Kakashi had made her realize just how emotionally distant and eager to flee he was. Since she didn't have a team, she was going to be spending a lot of time alone. She'd never been the type of person who needed a ton of socialization, but she would be getting pretty lonely if she spent her days alone and only nights with Naruto.

It was barely noon and she'd been abandoned for the day. Was she meant to keep up with her same workout routine? She had hoped to get some instruction from him. He hadn't told her anything about whatever conclusions he'd come to about her level- no praise or critiques.

Since she was already there- and was finally considered mature enough to use a real training ground, that was an improvement, right? – Aiko pushed herself through the motions of a workout.

She concentrated on sprints and building leg muscle through lunges, then transitioned to working on her flexibility until the strain in her joints bordered on painful.

Her next self-designed training exercise was meant to combine agility and chakra control: She flipped counter to gravity in the tree tops in increasingly acrobatic stunts, keeping her breathing even and flinging kunai at falling leaves to pin them to tree trunks. She counted the kunai that hit trees without snagging their leaves and was relatively satisfied, but knew that she needed to continue working on accuracy with moving targets. Aiko had no plans to specialize with aerial weaponry, but she was sure that using the skill in real combat was nothing like flinging kunai at a stationary pole while standing still at a certain distance.

She ate her prepared bento once she was done under the shade of the trees, laying on her back and cloud watching. That done, Aiko meandered home, trying not to look too wistfully at the Academy age children playing in the streets. She didn't see Naruto but she did see the unmistakable signs of his passing- a series of plastic tatters from broken balloons and bright, inky stains on light colored buildings and signs.

"Hey, Uzumaki!"

She stopped, mildly surprised. "Ino-san?"

Judging by the uncharacteristic dirt on Ino's white shorts and her messy ponytail, she'd been doing something like gardening. The shorter girl put her hands on her hips, tilted them sassily, and scowled at her. "I heard you graduated, but I just couldn't believe it. You're our age! How'd you do that?"

"Well, I was enrolled four years," she pointed out.

Ino's eyes widened. "No way!" she exclaimed in disgust. "You're ten like me."

She shrugged. "We started early." Aiko shot her former classmate a weak smile. "Sorry?"

Ino waved the apology away. "Don't be ridiculous, you don't have anything to apologize for. I guess that means that you aren't necessarily good. It's more that-" She seemed to realize how rude it would be to complete the thought that 'Naruto is bad at school 'and cut herself off guiltily. "Hey, walk with me. I'm supposed to pick up from colored paper for the flower shop."

"Sounds fine," Aiko agreed easily. She glanced down at herself and grimaced. "I'm pretty gross right now from training, though."

"Do you have a super-cool sensei? What's your team like?" The blonde girl shot out, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

"Actually, I don't have a team," she sighed. "It's a bit of a disappointment actually. My sensei… Hmm. Well, he's very skilled, but also very distant from what I can tell. I'm sure I will learn a lot from him, but I wish I had a team."

"I bet I know my team," Ino groused. "My dad told me once that his genin team intentionally had their kids within a few months so that they could have a second generation of their team. Creepy, right? And the boys are so weird!" She threw her hands up in disgust. "All they ever want to do is lay around and eat." She gave Aiko a dirty look. "And you- you were supposed to be my competition for top kunoichi of the year. Now you've gone and shown me up."

Aiko shrugged helplessly. Before she could say a thing, the blonde had continued. "I'm happy for you, of course, but you were really the only other girl who took this seriously. I thought Sakura had potential…"

When Ino trailed off miserably, Aiko shot her an inquisitive look. Last she'd seen, the two girls were practically attached at the hip. "Is something wrong?"

Ino flushed. "Well, yeah! I helped Sa-Forehead girl out for years, and all of a sudden she tells me she doesn't want to be my friend anymore because we like the same guy." Despite her tough act, her dejection was pretty obvious.

Aiko averted her eyes and tried to look like she was surprised. "I'm sorry to hear that. That's dumb. It was really short-sighted to put a boy before both her career and her best friend."

"That's what I thought," Ino grumbled, before she perked up. "I guess that means I'm in the market for a friend, huh? And you need one too, or you're going to go nuts with just your old person sensei for company." She flashed a mischievous grin. "Hey, wanna help me train? I bet you're going to get really strong, working one-on-one all the time. It'd only be fair to help out your Academy rival."

'Well, that was subtle.' "Sure," she laughed. "Once I know my regular schedule, we can plan out a training schedule. How's that sound?"

"I'll hold you to that," Ino nodded seriously. They stopped outside the general store.

"I'm going to leave you here." Aiko pulled at her shirt and grimaced. "I need to get home and clean up, desperately."

With a wrinkled nose, Ino agreed. "I wasn't going to say anything, but yes. You do. Later!"

Aiko felt an eye twitch coming on. 'Does this girl need someone to be frenemies with, or is she really just that rude?'

Monday, January 5.

Her first mission was lame. D-rank missions were utterly vile, she decided, and she had definitely gotten cheated by being a one person team. Kakashi certainly wasn't helping. Actually… She looked around. He wasn't even in sight. Aiko huffed, blowing a longer piece of hair out of her face because her hands were filthy from carrying chemicals around.

'Boy am I glad I had that Academy lecture on safely handling dangerous materials,' she snarked internally. This mission was just manual labor- it would have been given to civilian teams if the junk she was carrying out of a home that was about to be demolished wasn't unsafe. It needed to be disposed of in several different places, depending on substance. She'd found meticulously labeled reagents ranging from super-expired cleaners, herbal materials, bottles of human blood (disgusting!) and homemade poisons. Whoever owned the home had been some sort of specialist with a higher budget than she'd be able to even hope for for years.

With obvious exceptions that she knew better than to touch, some of the more benign items were interesting to the really terrible, naughty, Naruto-ish part of her mind. Since no one was around to care, Aiko snagged a few interesting materials that she had read about but not had access to before, as well as some empty glass vials. It couldn't hurt to practice, right? She could rush to the library to copy down the recipe she wanted after she was free for the day.

After she had finally finished working, Aiko mixed together her dreamed-up concoction (using gloves and a mask) and carefully poured them into three glass bottles that she stoppered and held up to the light. The end result was a pretty blue color… and she immediately tested it in training ground seven by tossing it at a tree a decent distance away (she didn't want to breathe it in). Somewhat strangely, the glass didn't shatter on impact. Instead, it cracked and bounced off into the bushes.

Aiko cursed quietly, wondering if it was safe to approach. She didn't know if it had gone off or not. That is, she didn't know until a horrid yowl split the air and she jumped, first in fright and then to a higher position to see what had happened.

Her concoction did actually seem to form a respectable amount of smoke (who says Naruto was the only one with a mind for chemicals, ha!). It was what she saw when the smoke faded that worried her.

"Oh, shit." She broke off a stick and gently poked at the prone animal she'd found, hoping for good news but already knowing what had happened. "I killed a cat." The thing looked like it had died horribly- it was in a strange pose as if it had convulsed, and blood was leaking from the nose and mouth. Good thing she hadn't breathed in the smoke herself. Aiko bit at her lip. "I'm sorry little guy. You were probably just minding your own business, hanging out in the wild. Maybe you're Kakashi's stray cat. Oh kami, I killed Kakashi's cat. He's going to kill me, 'ttebane! And Naruto! What would Naruto think if he knew I killed a helpless little kitty cat?!"

The corpse seemed to be staring at her accusingly through eyes that were quickly glazing over.

She quietly hyperventilated for a few long moments, trying to repress the panic. When that didn't work, she forced it away by pacing and trying to think. "Okay, just stop. I… I need to destroy the evidence. Cremation is respectful, right?"

It turned out that in her adrenaline-fueled haze, even the silly sparking jutsu could get a decent fire going. She coughed, trying to wave the foul-smelling smoke away from her face. "That's foul." She began to cry. 'I'm a terrible human being. I killed a kitty cat—I'm a terrible ninja! My first casualty was a kitty.'

Somehow her brain had time to conjure up the image of her rotting in jail, explaining to other inmates that she was in for cat murder. That definitely wasn't a respectable ninja action.

'I really hope that isn't Kakashi's cat... If it is, I orphaned a litter of kittens.'

She did her level best not to cry at the thought. Her eyes darted around, looking for other evidence. There were scorch marks on the ground… 'Well, accidentally starting a forest fire would be the exact opposite of subtle.' Terrible human being or not, she wanted Naruto to find out about this absolutely never. That meant no one could know. With that in mind, Aiko ran the hundred meters to the river and gathered up a huge glob of chakra-soaked water in her hands, stumbling back to the scene of the crime post-haste. She splashed it on the area, making sure to leave no trace embers. It was still obvious that something had happened there…

'But would that matter?' She took a long look around the training field. The earth was gouged with holes, some of which were full of water. The trees were scarred from kunai and other weapons, shards of rocks scattered the grounds, and more than one tree looked decidedly crispy. Her little patch of scorched ground didn't look that suspicious, really.

She gathered the two unused bottles and disposed of them quietly on her way home. If her eyes were a bit haunted, Naruto certainly didn't notice that night when he slurped down his oden.

'No one will ever know.'

Thankfully, her next missions were less eventful. After that mess, grocery shopping, raking leaves, and babysitting seemed like a much better use of her time.

Friday, January 9.

"I can't understand it," the Sandaime Hokage groused to his civilian secretary who looked more than a bit sympathetic. "I've had three experienced genin teams fail to find the Fire Lady's cat. This is just ridiculous." He finished signing the papers with a flourish and handed them off. He added in an undertone, "If she comes by again to ask me about her precious baby, I'm not in. You hear me?"

[theshirohi]

semi guided independent study. ah. at least our girl has the ability to play well by herself.

"...intentionally had their kids within a few months so that they could have a second generation of their team." generation xerox at its finest. everything to put in a "don't think about too hard" box

when she accidentally kills a/The cat and veers off chemical warfare for her future. true comedy

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 3

The Fox and the Hound

Point of view: Hound

Naruto was crying, great hiccupping sobs shaking his tiny shoulders. Hound cringed a little and skittered backwards. For the first time he found himself falling back on one of Minato-sensei's mannerisms—he fluttered his hands uncertainly, not knowing what to do with them.

He wanted- he wanted the crying to stop, both because the noise was horrendous and because there was no need for Naruto to be sad.

'He's six,' Kakashi thought incredulously. 'Why would such a little thing upset him so? When I was six…'

Granted, when he was six, he was already a shinobi and had fought for his life. Perhaps the comparison was invalid. Still… He didn't know quite what to do about a child breaking down into tears over being snubbed by a prospective friend's parent.

It had been more than unfair. Naruto had been happily chasing a brunette girl with trailing pigtails across the playground when the girl's mother had snapped to attention, noticed her child's playmate, and barked out that they were going home. Naruto had watched the confused exodus with a blank expression that told Hound and any other discerning observers that the boy understood he had just been deemed an unsuitable playmate. And why not? It wasn't the first time.

The blond had turned and headed home without another word, clumsily unlocking the door to the apartment he shared with his sister using the key hanging around his neck. He had then proceeded to crawl onto the couch and bawl his eyes out.

Hound caught himself wishing that Aiko hadn't chosen today to haunt the library, so that she could comfort her twin. She seemed to be the comparatively logical one, reserved and quiet. Had he only seen her in public he would have thought she was a stone-faced little girl, but she was considerably different around Naruto. Fond and –indulgent, perhaps?

He licked the inside of his lips, feeling vaguely guilty for being such a sub-par human being that he would rely on the parenting expertise of a six year old girl.

But what else could he do? Hound couldn't do a thing himself, even if he were allowed to show himself to Naruto. He didn't have the social skills. The only children he'd ever dealt with were… were…

Hound backed out of the apartment without alerting the child that he had ever been there and rushed through a familiar series of handsigns in the hallway. A moment later, Pakkun, the proud new father of a litter of five puppies, blinked up at him.

His request was wordless and nearly instantaneous, a combination of handsigns and pleading body language.

Severely unimpressed, the pug raised one ear and tilted his head. "Not now, pup," Pakkun said lowly. "I'd call Bisuke, if I were you. He's good with puppies, and he won't accidentally shout out if someone pulls his tail or pets his fur the wrong way."

"Right," Kakashi said quietly, acknowledging the logic there. "Thank you, Pakkun."

The pug nodded, hesitating. After a moment, he sighed. "I wouldn't mind playing with them when I'm not so busy," he admitted balefully. "I do love puppies."

Hound shook his head. "I think this is a one-time deal."

With that, he released the summoning and called upon the right dog. Forty seconds later, Naruto's head shot up at the sound of scratching against the door. He sniffled, giving it a suspicious stare. After a few moments of continued scratching and quiet whines, the boy hauled himself up and answered the door.

Bisuke bowled him over with gentle enthusiasm, licking the salt off his face and nuzzling. Naruto gave a surprised giggle.

Hound nearly smiled under his cold mask as the boys rolled around on the floor and wrestled. There, he'd problem-solved without a six-year old's help.

And this was supposed to be the relaxing mission, a break from real ANBU work. Ha. Protection detail was far more stressful than anything he did outside the village, in some ways. He was good at hurting people. Keeping them safe was a personal weakness.

When the older twin came home, Bisuke's ears pricked to attention. Hound silently dismissed ANBU Crow. The boy nodded and left. There was no need for two watchers now that the twins were in the same place.

"Tadaima," Aiko called, shucking her shoes messily. When she received no answer the girl padded around the couch—and her posture instantly relaxed at the sight of Naruto sleeping peacefully, using a vicious nin-dog as a pillow. She bit her lower lip in thought for a moment before cautiously approaching the hound. At the gracious nod Bisuke gave her (like a queen acknowledging a subject, Hound noted in irritation) the little girl dropped to her knees and all but fell over herself to scratch behind the dog's ears and rub at his back.

Oddly, Hound was disappointed with the twin he'd thought was more perceptive. She should be more suspicious than that of a large animal wearing a vest in her home.

Well, they were just children, even if he deluded himself into thinking that there was something strangely knowing about the way she looked at his ninken before she grinned at the dog. They couldn't be expected to connect all the dots.

Aiko didn't much like taijutsu practice at the Academy when it was finally started in earnest- by which she meant supervised spars using the katas they had been taught. Iruka-sensei and his assistant Mizuki-sensei did a passable job of making sure that no one got hurt while learning to kill. There was a thrill in realizing that her body was so much better than she thought it was, that she could bend back to put her palms on the ground and then lift her feet up without doing more than shaking if she really worked at it. It was an enormous relief to start feeling less like she was trapped in a sub-par body and more like she was capable and strong. Those aspects were really enjoyable, even though her sparring partner sucked. Hyuuga Neji was a little monster, and he beat her with embarrassing ease every time they fought.

Once she managed to pull her attention away from her own problems, Aiko discovered that Naruto had his own issues with taijutsu practice. Finding out that Iruka's growing discomfort and confusion about how to relate to Naruto meant that he got less attention than he should was displeasing. To be fair to the Chuunin teachers, everything that they told the twins was correct, and they wouldn't let either of them move on in the material before it had been mastered. So it was clear that no one was trying to allow unprepared genin to graduate and get themselves killed.

It was still insidiously harmful that Naruto was almost always the last one picked, and his sessions were often cut off by the bell for the next activity. The consistently shaved times in conjunction with Naruto's less mature body (now seven years old to their peers' nine) was a formidable handicap.

'He has plenty of time to work out the kinks in his taijutsu,' Aiko reminded herself as they trudged home, reaching out to take Naruto's grubby fingers into hers. He tolerated the touch absently, kicking and glaring at a rock that seemed generally inoffensive to her. 'In the anime, he gets held back twice. The Hokage must know better than to let a ten year old graduate. In a way, he did us a favor by giving us extra time to learn.'

Trying to look on the bright side didn't always help, but it didn't hurt to hope that not everyone was either incompetent or malicious. Still, Aiko privately thought that she would do a much better job with the really important village administration efforts if she were the one in charge. Like keeping the jinchuuriki safe and stable, for example.

She was thankful that Naruto was a social, fluttering personality. Right now it caused him hurt because their peers had either been warned off of them or didn't want to play with the babies of the class, but at least it meant that he didn't constantly cling to her. Aiko loved Naruto dearly, and would gladly bash Mizuki's head in with a brick to defend his honor if she thought she could get away with it. That didn't mean she never got tired of spending time with him. She liked being with Naruto, but it felt like she was one of those tacky pez dispensers: Naruto took a little bit out of her every time they interacted. That was fine, that was what she was there for—but eventually she was empty and in need of time away from him to refill.

It felt like she was his mother, not his sister. They had been moved out of the orphanage and into an apartment with an attentive landlady and a cook who came by once a day when they had been entered into the Academy, but the rest of the parenting was all up to Aiko to teach or Naruto to figure out on his own. She could handle a lot of it—homework, making sure he was properly fed and dressed—but there were areas in which she just couldn't help. How could she possibly teach a little boy to relate to other people? Aiko couldn't relate to adults because they condescended to her, and she couldn't relate to children her apparent age because they had nothing in common intellectually.

He was doing something right, because he'd gone and made friends with a pretty teenager whose father plied Naruto with ramen when he came to visit.

"Are you coming?"

Naruto practically hovered at the apartment door the moment it turned six—the time that Ayame-san started her shift at the ramen stand.

"Sure, sure," Aiko sighed agreeably, gathering up Naruto's homework into a backpack. Now, where had she left her library text about the cultural history of the northern regions of Fire Country…

Her otouto scowled helplessly, but took the bag she foisted on him in silent agreement to complete his assignments while his friend was preoccupied with customers. She didn't bother restraining the laugh at his morose expression.

"Cheer up," Aiko taunted, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head slightly. "It won't take that long to finish your work, and then Ayame-san will know you're as smart as you are cute."

Naruto flushed a deeply amusing shade of vibrant pink. "Nee-chan!" he squawked indignantly, hugging his bag to his tummy. "Ayame-chan is really old! And I'm not cute, so there." The little stomp he gave was startlingly unconvincing.

Unwillingly, Aiko's face twisted into a pout and her eyes softened.

Her brother flinched, knowing what that expression meant. "Aikoooo," he whined, backing up cautiously. "Don't look at me like that."

"Too late!" She leapt at him, bringing him down to the floor in a tumble of warm skin and giggles and little boy legs kicking futilely. "You're sooo cute," Aiko crooned, scrunching up her nose.

His replying, "Am not!" was cut off by the loud shriek of surprise he gave when Aiko hauled herself up enough to start planting kisses on his forehead and cheeks.

She didn't really even know what she was saying—it was just a babble of baby talk along the lines of, 'who's the cutest? You are! You are!' in-between artificially noisy "muah" sound effects as she peppered his face.

"Nee-channn," Naruto wailed when he finally gave up, legs stilling. "You're embarrassing. We're at home alone and you're still embarrassing."

"I have to get my kicks somewhere," Aiko said practically, ruffling his hair one last time. "Now get up, you look a mess and you have a hot date with Ayame-san."

He just made a high-pitched whine and stomped away, ears flushed a hot red.

The twins' fifth year in the Academy was remarkable for a few reasons. They had been taking classes with the age group Aiko recognized as the bulk of the rookie 12 for two years. Aiko found eight year olds slightly less contemptibly dull than six year olds, but not by enough to spend her free time with them.

Naruto, on the other hand, had formed a lazy sort of camaraderie with Nara Shikamaru and Inuzuka Kiba. It wasn't good for his attendance record or his grades, but it was good for his mood. They began skipping classes on a weekly basis, sneaking in before the final bell smelling of ramen or barbeque.

Aiko highly doubted that the other two were fooling the clan members that came to walk them home from classes, but she didn't much care either. She had considered trying to straighten Naruto out into a conscientious student, but had been halted by a bout of apathy. Why? What was the point? He got very little out of the structured classes. She wouldn't be surprised if he was dyslexic—he could read, but he complained that it gave him headaches and that the squiggles wouldn't stay still.

Those complaints seemed to generally be dismissed as an attempt to squirrel out of book work by Mizuki and several of the specialized teachers. Iruka-sensei had given lectures to that effect for a while until he seemed to clue in. Their primary teacher had tried, to give him credit. He had taken Naruto to a medical appointment with a medic-nin, and then to a specialized civilian sector optometrist when the first testing didn't reveal any abnormalities.

It was a pity that neither specialist could figure out what was wrong, but at least Iruka-sensei believed Naruto that something was genuinely affecting his ability to participate in classroom learning. Aiko considered speaking up—but how? It wasn't like she knew anything about how dyslexia worked, or even if that was a medical problem that modern medicine was aware of.

It was stupid to waste time mapping out complicated math problems to figure out projectile trajectory or how much blood was lost per second for different wounds. No one was going to do that math in the field. Practice and experience were what mattered. Naruto would flourish there.

' At least Iruka-sensei warmed up to Naruto.'

Aiko tried not to smile the first time that he showed up at their apartment with bags of takeout, clearly worried that Naruto was surviving on ramen and optimism. Iruka-sensei was mildly flabbergasted to see that the one-bedroom that the twins shared was in fact well-stocked and relatively clean.

To be fair, the fund that was provided for them to live off of was less than impressive and would have been hard to stretch enough. But there were clearly adults interested in the twins' welfare, even if they didn't want to meet them. The Hokage was certain to keep a careful eye on the state of the twins' equipment and get them new clothing at the changes of season, and two different parties left care packages.

It wasn't hard to piece together that the food that mysteriously made its way to the doorstep or kitchen table was from different people. The things that ended up on their kitchen table were always homemade and prettily wrapped, and the woman (Aiko was sure it was a woman, there was a faint trace of perfume that was so familiar) that left it had a habit of doing their dishes. In contrast, every so often, a disheveled and confused jumble of odds and ends that all but screamed 'bachelor' was left on their doorstop with toothmarks on the battered basket it was delivered in.

Iruka coughed, shifting his feet in the genkan and not bothering to disguise his examination of their living space. "It's nice?" he tried.

It wasn't particularly nice. The twins all but lived in a shoebox, as far as Aiko was concerned. It was hellishly small for someone who liked to pace. But that seemed to be a trait shared by Konoha's architecture and not a snub against the twins themselves.

"Food!" Naruto shot out of the bathroom, banging into the wall as he went. He cheerfully flung himself at Iruka without care for the fact that his bare feet inadvertently kicked the bag the man was holding.

"Oof-" Iruka choked, attempting to wrap his arms around the boy, and failing because Naruto had already slipped away and shoved his head inside the plastic bag.

"You would think he never got fed," Aiko remarked blandly, unimpressed by Naruto's enthusiasm. There was no point in getting worked up about it. She had learned the hard way that there was no changing the fact that he had ten times the energy and enthusiasm that she did. Naruto didn't harm anything or mean to be rude.

"I was starting to wonder," Iruka said doubtfully as Naruto absconded to the kitchen with the meal and began pulling open drawers and flinging serving spoons and chopsticks onto the table.

Any response she might have made was cut off by sudden angry sirens. Iruka tensed and all but shot to the door, securing it with a series of handsigns that Aiko couldn't see, much less list off.

"What's going on, Iruka-sensei!" Naruto half-demanded, excitement warring with discomfort from the godawful noise. He had clapped his hands to his head at the same time Aiko did.

"Lockdown," Iruka said grimly, pacing through the apartment. "Everyone under Jounin is confined to the closest safe location. What windows do you have?" He sealed the window in their bedroom with the same handsigns, and the three had a tense dinner. The audible alerts cycled through several pitches and patterns while Iruka maintained a forced calm. The last one seemed to be some sort of all-clear, because the tenseness in Iruka's shoulders fled and he unsealed the door and windows so that the twins didn't hurt themselves by getting too close to them.

"I need to go see if I can help," Iruka explained at the door, ruffling Naruto's hair. The blond scowled at him. The teacher's eyes softened, and he bent to give Naruto a hug. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. The danger is passed. I will see you two in the morning, right?" Iruka made an awkward, aborted motion towards Aiko as if only realizing that he might hurt one child's feelings by paying more attention to the other. He stopped at her expression, and only gave a wave.

"Have a good night, sensei," Aiko said absently as she closed the door.

They were never told what had happened, per se. But the Academy was noticeably depleted in its supply of dark-haired little boys and girls the next morning. Only one of them came back. When that finally happened, Sasuke was grim-faced and a far cry from the cheerful little boy he had been a week before. He decimated his usual training partners Kiba and Hinata in every match with enough viciousness that Aiko was rather glad she'd started official taijutsu training a year before and been paired with Neji, even if he wiped the floor with her and sent her to the hospital the first time they fought.

The homemade care packages stopped coming. Aiko tried very hard not to think about what that meant, but she had dreams of silky black hair and her 'aunt' from the orphanage for weeks.

Aiko started to feel like she had less and less free time for Naruto as their sixth school year slipped by. It had been a long time since her disastrous first match with Neji and the painful, equally bad matches that followed it.

Out of sheer self-preservation and not genuine desire to improve, Aiko had begun to haunt the Academy training grounds and work on her own for hours every day. Practicing alone wasn't optimal, but it was better than nothing. (Although she desperately wished that one of the other students in their cohort would undergo a sudden increase in abilities that got them reassigned as Neji's partner. Wasn't Lee supposed to be good at taijutsu?)

She was finally starting to get to a point where she could nearly compete with Neji. It might have partly been that she'd hit a growth spurt—she was almost ten to his eleven, and had a good two inches on him. That made it harder for him to keep her at distance. She had to remind herself that it wasn't an advantage she could count on—she'd be smaller than practically any other opponent out of the Academy. He was still stronger than she was, but Aiko had managed to improve both her speed and her blocks to the point where he almost never landed a hit on her.

Of course, she couldn't get a hit on him either, which led to painfully long and boring spars until Iruka-sensei inevitably called the match in Neji's favor.

'At least I only get bruises on my forearms and fists now', she consoled herself one morning after the initial spar of the day, running her cool-down laps around the short track. It was a visible improvement on the mottled look she used to sport daily. Naruto sped by, closely followed by—was that Ino? She looked pretty pissed about something.

From his position a few feet in front of her, Sasuke stiffened, then deliberately pushed his pace so that the more enthusiastic students didn't lap him. Aiko felt her eye twitch in exasperation. "A cool-down isn't a competition, 'ttebane!" she shouted, knowing damn well he didn't hear her.

What she heard in response was a quiet huffing behind her. Aiko blinked and drifted to one side, twisting her head to see who was coming up behind her. "Oh hi, Hinata-chan." She flashed a toothy grin.

God, that kid was cute. Her classmates almost looked like people at this age instead of dolls, which made it easier to talk to them.

Hinata's porcelain pale skin flushed a little, and she drew her arms closer to her body. She didn't slow down or avert her eyes, however. "Ah, hello, Aiko-san." She visibly hesitated. "You did well in your spar today," Hinata added meekly.

"Thank you, that's very nice of you to say. I saw part of yours too. Your foot work is really good," she praised. 'Hinata was always lacking in confidence, right?' "Is Sakura-san a nice partner to have?"

Hinata nodded, looking more comfortable when she wasn't the topic. "Haruno-san is getting better every day. I am glad to work with her."

Aiko bit her lower lip, considering a sudden thought. "Hey, Hinata-chan? Would you like to practice with me after class today?"

It could help her a lot to be able to practice against someone with training like Neji's…

The other girl blinked rapidly, clearly surprised. "Ah..." Hinata looked down. "I'm expected at home," she mumbled.

"That's fine!" Awkwardly, Aiko tried to give her a smile. It didn't seem to do what she intended- Hinato looked embarrassed and uncomfortable, not soothed.

'Well, I tried. Is it me she doesn't want anything to do with, or is she really just too busy?'

She decided she didn't want to know. Her gut was telling her that Hinata would have suggested another time if she hadn't just been looking for an excuse not to spend time with her.

' She probably doesn't want to help me against her cousin.'

The conversation died off, but after that Aiko started to notice just how much Hinata watched her when she sparred with Neji. Now that she knew to look, it was easy to see that Hinata's attention often wandered. When it did, she pushed Sakura harder—almost as if she thought she was the one fighting Neji. Aiko didn't say anything. Naruto was her only supplementary sparring partner. At least he was enthusiastic and good-natured, if not as technically skilled as Neji.

October came and went- she and Naruto spent their birthday alone at home, despite the minor festival going on outside.

She never actually beat Neji, but she was getting to a point where the blows that landed on his forearms (he was scary good at blocking) actually seemed to do something more than glance off. She could tell because his expression would tighten and he'd do his level best to beat the absolute crap out of her after she hit him. Naruto finally noticed her growth spurt, and was righteously furious that he didn't have one to match. He determinedly ate vegetables for a full week before quitting when he saw no improvement.

One Friday, she was idly rewriting the Lord of the Rings (in decidedly more pedestrian language, because she was certainly not a linguist or real author and had probably forgotten tons of stuff and made up almost as much) while pretending to take notes when Iruka announced he would be handing out the information sheets for potential graduates. When she got one, Aiko snorted and tried to hand it back. "Ano, sensei, there's been a mistake." He didn't take it.

"No, there hasn't," he said calmly. "You will be graduating this semester." He leaned in closely and gave her a stern expression. "All your teachers know you will be ready to graduate. Don't fail intentionally to stay with your brother. You're ready to move on, and he isn't. You won't do either of you any favors by flunking the year." Then he moved on to the next row, leaving her almost completely stunned.

'They tricked me when they put me against Neji,' she registered far too late. 'They tricked me into working harder than I should to get held back without realizing it.'

To be fair, it had never occurred to her that she would have to make sure she was held back. Sure, she was almost at the end of a standard term, but since she and Naruto had started so early, she'd really thought they would graduate with their age mates…

She looked up and it finally registered that Naruto was staring at her, as were several other students. Overall, the exchange seemed to have gone unnoticed. Instead of looking at it, Aiko shuffled the paper under her notebook and bent down again, trying to look engrossed.

It had honestly never occurred to her that she would be separated from Naruto. They entered the Academy the same year, after all. And he would graduate with his age group.. in… the… manga.

If it wouldn't have looked strange, she would have taken that opportunity to bang her head against the desk. 'Stupid, stupid! What happens to Naruto in the manga means nothing about you!'

Naruto gave her weak congratulations that night and fled to sleep on the couch. Aiko stayed up late, too busy thinking to fall asleep. Maybe she should take the opportunity- did she even have a choice, anyway? If she intentionally held herself back… well, she became one of Konoha's military resources when she entered the Academy, and the Hokage was her legal guardian.

So no. She didn't have a choice. If she tried to fail, she would just get reported for sabotaging military resources (a proviso usually used to force alcoholics to slow down or get sneakier).

With that in mind, she dutifully practiced the E-ranked jutsu the Academy had taught in the last month. Aside from the three she'd known about –Kawarimi, Henge, and the Clone- she'd also managed to master the finger-spark jutsu (used for burning paper evidence or lighting cigarettes) and managed to manifest one chakra string of an inch's length that could grab light objects.

She'd wondered why the manga had never shown these, but then the answer seemed obvious.

Sakura was competent but wouldn't have pushed for extra non-book work, Sasuke had better fire jutsu and used wires for that purpose, and Naruto… well, he'd barely mastered the three essentials (or a close approximation of them, anyway). Over the next week, she mercilessly drilled herself until she could replicate clothes down to the direction of a weave and switch with objects she couldn't even see.

Just as predicted, she easily breezed through the graduation exam- she led a team of first-years through a new obstacle course, dispelled a genjutsu, showed off her basic three jutsu in a low-pressure environment, and completed a three minute spar against Mizuki while Iruka took notes. When she landed a real hit, she was absolutely shocked by what a genius Neji must be. She took the opportunity to land several painful hits on Mizuki, but was eventually taken down into a panting mess. She was satisfied, though- she got extra points for thinking to use kawarimi in a mock combat session. It was a little unsporting, but 'unsportsmanlike' was practically a compliment to ninja. The kunai, shuriken, and paper tests weren't really even worth speaking about… they were embarrassingly easy.

She received her headband, one on the standard blue fabric.

Aiko found something vaguely disturbing about a ten year old in the standard military color. That night, she painstakingly scrubbed it with sand to dull the shine and pulled the stitches keeping it on the band. She cut up the bodice of a yellow dress that didn't fit anymore to make a new headband and secured it, playing with angles to find out how she wanted to wear it.

It felt strange on her forehead and she looked silly with it hanging around her neck. She liked it as a belt and a headband, so when she left the next morning she was wearing it around her waist and a jerry-rigged headband to match.

'I feel vaguely like batman,' she thought, checking herself out in the bathroom mirror. There was something strangely satisfying about her new look. She'd slipped into slim-fitting black pants that reached just below her knees and a short-sleeved tunic in the same color that reached halfway down her thighs.

She tugged at her leaf insignia. 'This is a pretty poor utility belt, though.' She momentarily amused herself by imaging pulling a gigantic batarang out of it… then she realized that with the use of seals that could be done. She could make her forehead protector into a small arsenal. The thought amused her. Then she took off the headband and ran her fingers through her hair, frowning at the length.

Her hair never failed to garner odd looks and some comments from her peers- despite what looked like a plausible (if a bit rare) color to her, strawberry blonde hair apparently wasn't a thing here. It wasn't very long—it only reached a few inches past her collarbones. 'Still… I don't look like a real shinobi. I look like a little girl playing dress up.' That in mind, she carefully but inexpertly hacked at it with a kunai, letting hairs pile up in the sink. She cut it as short as Naruto's in the back, with bangs that fell just above her eyes, but left herself chin-length locks on either side of her face… Mostly because she didn't want to look like a boy. She turned around, experimentally tossing her hair. It looked like a very messy version of Hinata's hair at age twelve, she thought.

'Or Minato's,' she realized. Aiko frowned. 'That might be a little bit of a faux-pas… Well. Too late now.' She smiled at her reflection and pulled her headband back on. As she walked past her blue sandals sitting by the front door, she grimaced a little. 'I need to get some black sandals. I'm making a mental note- tonight, after I meet my team.' The thought sent exciting shivers up her spine. Aiko preoccupied herself in the kitchen. She was going to have her own team, like a real ninja. By the time Naruto had stumbled into the bathroom for the morning (and yelled something incoherent and vaguely accusatory about the mess in the sink) she had breakfast and was finishing arranging two bento.

"Whoa! Your hair!" Naruto wailed, skidding into the kitchen. "It was so pretty, Aiko-chaaaaan! What'd you do that for?"

Aiko turned to give him an amused look, pouring herself some hottea. She set it down on the table and walked off to the fridge. "Pretty, yes, but it wasn't practical. I'm a ninja now and I should look like one."

"There are ninjas with long hair," he argued. "I've seen them." She shut the fridge and slid the orange juice across the table to him. He took it sullenly and grabbed for his empty glass with his other hand.

"Yeah, but they're better ninja than I am." She pulled out her seat. "Having long hair is a sign of status, kind of. It's a declaration that you're good enough as a ninja to compensate for the disadvantages of possibly obscured vision and a hand-hold for enemies in close combat. I'm a fresh genin; I'm nowhere near that good. Besides…" She touched her new spikes. "I like it like this."

"I wish you weren't leaving," he said suddenly.

Aiko frowned, feeling uncomfortable. "I'm not really leaving, you know," she pointed out. "I still live with you. I'm not going to be leaving the village for a long time. My first missions will all be in the village. While you're in school, I'm going to be doing lame stuff like weeding gardens and painting fences." She made a fence.

Naruto flailed, spilling some juice. He caught the cup before it actually tipped, and looked back up at her. "What?! Why would you do that?"

"That's what D-rank missions are like," she said, amused by his ignorance. He really was cute when he overreacted like that. "Since I'm graduating young, they're not going to want me out of the village for a long time. I'm a little jealous of you, in a way. You'll probably spend a lot less time on D-ranks than I will."

He pointed and laughed at her for a while. She huffed and stood, brushing non-existent crumbs off her shirt. "Don't be a brat, Naruto. Hey, you need to get dressed."

He gave her a vaguely superior look. "Aiko, it's Saturday. I don't have class. Have fun at school!" he snickered. She stuck her tongue out at him and jammed her feet into her sandals.

"Hey, toss me my bento. Thanks." She shut the door behind her and set off for the Academy at an easy run. At one point she had to stop and stare at a person who just had to be Maito Gai. Granted, he was wearing completely normal ninja attire, and his hair didn't seem to be slicked down, so she might not have picked him out of a crowd if he'd been walking down the street. She could tell because he was walking on his hands and balancing a cactus on his feet, tongue sticking out a little with concentration. She waved weakly, feeling a little shell-shocked. He transferred the potted plant to one foot and waved at her with the other leg. He seemed to be concentrating too much to actually speak, so she let it be and backed away slowly.

The classroom she was to wait in was nearly full, and she recognized almost no one in it. Most of the kids here were from the other classrooms. Some of them gave her strange looks, but no one called her out. Aiko took a seat at the back of the classroom (she liked having a wall to her back and waited.

Iruka came in with Mizuki at his side and a scroll. She barely listened to his spiel (something about adulthood and responsibility) and only perked up once he began to read off teams. Team by team left the room… and she suddenly realized that it didn't look like the kids in the classroom ended up as a dividend of three. Alarmed, she began to count to be sure. 3-6-9-12-…13… There were thirteen students in the room…. Shit, she'd thrown off the count by graduating on time. Then there were seven students… Which turned to four, and then it was just her and Iruka-sensei was rolling up the scroll.

"Um… Sensei?" she said dumbly. Mizuki gave a quiet snicker, but didn't comment. Iruka looked vaguely sympathetic when he avoided her gaze and stuttered that her sensei should be by to get her soon, wait here please.

Then they left and she was alone… with a sinking feeling.

"Oh hell, I'm going to be waiting here a while, aren't I?"

[theshirohi]

"There, he’d problem-solved without a six-year old’s help." I'd like to react to this with the gif of Gordon Ramsay's "Oh dear, oh dear, gorgeous". That sweet weird weird ... teen at this point.

and a "... wait a goddamn minute" ANBU Crow? Shisui? gott, I guess you really do get new things out of re-reads everytime.

"Still, Aiko privately thought..." I doubt AIC sparkle was born here. but. you know. she always had the moxy.

not a parent, but definitely have been a bit of a child watching over another in less extreme and total circumstances. I want to say 'it takes a village' but then can only laugh about how The Village was the problem here.

' “You would think he never got fed,” Aiko remarked blandly, unimpressed by Naruto’s enthusiasm. ' I feel my own mother here

I am amused in how just following along, I too, was blindsided by Aiko graduating early. Knowing the future can really mean jack.

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 2

Aiko didn't like to think about those early days of blearily drifting in and out of consciousness, realizing that the world was a blur of strange colors and smells and feelings that she couldn't properly interpret.

First of all, it was strange and frightening that she could remember it at all. She certainly shouldn't. At three years old, she was discerning enough to know that she was a complete freak and just savvy enough to keep her lips sealed shut instead of babbling even though some part of her realllly wanted to impress the grownups she knew. It would be satisfying to impress her caretakers and the other adults she saw, and maybe get special treatment. But in the long run? It felt like a terrible idea.

'For me and for Naruto. What would happen if I got taken away? No one cares about him.'

"Hey! Heyyyyyy," Naruto whined, tugging on her foot. He was sitting with his legs spread wide on the floor and staring beseechingly up at where she was perched on the bed. "What doing?"

She did her best not to grimace, both at the grammar and at the way that the toddler guilelessly rubbed his fist against his runny nose and then onto his shirt.

It wasn't his fault, really, that he was a comparatively normal child. When the fact that he was a jinchuuriki was taken into question, that fact took on an alarming pallor.

'I don't even like kids,' she thought resentfully, for the nth time. 'It's not fair.'

"I'm looking at pic-tures," Aiko said carefully to minimize the way her clumsy tongue stumbled over harder syllables. She turned the glossy children's book –an encyclopedia of sea creatures thinly guised as a story—in her hands to show her otouto. "Would you like to see?" She clumsily patted the cushion next to her, carefully avoiding looking at her stubby fingers. She already knew they looked like fat sausages without watching. Naruto made a face, but climbed up beside her, using another pillow as a step-stool and nearly slipping.

'I hate this pathetic body,' Aiko thought dully, turning the book back to the first page. 'It can't do anything right.'

Granted, she suspected that the flesh bag she was currently interred in was of vastly superior quality to her old one. The comparison was probably like a new Camaro and a fifteen year old Grand Am. They were both technically cars, and they looked fine at first scrutiny. But no matter how great her three-year-old flesh bag was for such a small sack of meat, it was still the body of a young child. It tired easily and needed rest often. Her fingers were fat and clumsy, and she had a hard time utilizing fine motor skills for things like coloring.

Her otouto wiggled beside her, making a strange high-pitched 'eeeeee' sound for no apparent reason. When that garnered no reaction but a tilted head, he huffed loudly and bounced, shaking the bed. "What's the story?" Naruto demanded bossily, prodding the book with an outstretched finger. When he grabbed for the pages, she pulled it away.

"There's not really a story," Aiko demurred, trying to keep the sigh out of her voice. There were picture books with words she could guess at, yes, but she wasn't going to touch those until it was well and age-appropriate for her to do so. She was bored out of her gourd, but it wasn't worth the risk.

At least not until she knew what was going on well enough to gauge the risks of gaining adult attention, anyway. She didn't know much about how ninjas trained or dealt with prodigy children, but she didn't think it was anything she would like to experience.

For the first few weeks or months, she'd thought that she was completely insane. To be fair, an infant had a horrendously poor grip on reality. She hadn't been able to see well, struggled to stay awake for very long, and she certainly hadn't understood anything that was being said. It had seemed like a waking dream when she had first made the connection between her current existence and a half-remembered television show that she had apparently never finished watching. Pity. She really couldn't have predicted that would become relevant to her survival and lifestyle.

Naruto was simultaneously the reason she questioned her sanity and the one consistent source of human interaction that was keeping her from going absolutely insane. She needed him.

Naruto made a rude sound that implied he wasn't going to accept the answer that there was no story. Fair enough.

She glanced around futilely, as if to be sure she was alone. The beautiful dark-eyed lady who volunteered at the orphanage and had them call her 'aunt' was nowhere to be seen. She had probably left for the day—Aiko was relatively sure that the woman had children of her own to tend to.

That didn't mean the twins were alone. She didn't see one often, but there was at least one ANBU who followed them around.

Well. She'd just have to speak slowly and try to keep her diction to something believable.

"This fish is named Marlin," Aiko said quietly, pointing out an illustrated koi. That wasn't the right type of fish at all, but it wasn't as if Naruto would know the difference. "He's scared of everything. Like this shark," Aiko pointed as she turned the next page. The blue-green color of the water in the books was like her eyes. The sky was like Naruto's. They looked nice together. "And he's scared of this walrus, too," she improvised. That wasn't in the right story, but there weren't any sea turtles in this book. She'd have to make do. There was in fact a barracuda, but she wasn't going to tell her little brother a grim story about a mother being murdered.

"Why?" Naruto breathed, staring, transfixed at the glossy images.

"Well, bigger fish are dangerous," she said practically. "And sharks eat fish." She couldn't hold back the grin at the disgusted face Naruto made and the way he buried his face in his hands and shook his head.

"Nuh-uh," he rejected. The words were a direct contrast to the fascinated glee on his face. His big blue eyes practically glittered.

She knew what was coming, but Aiko still waited to hear it with amused fondness.

"Tell me more."

"Our great village was founded…"

Her civilian teacher's voice was a comforting drone seeping in one ear and out the other. Aiko wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to a thing that the man said.

There was no need to, really. History wasn't going to help her much. Besides, the propaganda lightly dashed with facts that he was sharing would be repeated in other classes, she was sure. As they grew older they would probably get the party line reinforced, peppered with darker inclusions as they became age appropriate.

Or what counted for age appropriate in a shinobi village, in any case. Half of the picture books back at the orphanage included references to violence, indexes and identification games of weapons, and casual mention of death that was doubtless meant to serve as a reference for appropriate grieving behaviors. The other half were perfectly standard, trite works with cute animals and pretty children with two loving parents and an extended family who taught them various lessons.

(Aiko had no idea which sort was more harmful to Naruto. The sweet banal picture books of happy families filled him with a wistfulness that was painful to see, but watching as the darker texts normalized the shinobi lifestyle made her want to tear them all up).

"In the fiftieth year of the ninja, the great clans…"

Dull as dirt. No wonder that Naruto was nearly nodding off on his desk. That was probably a better use of time than listening, Aiko thought. It wasn't her plan for the day, however.

She was instead preoccupied with practicing her hiragana. Painstakingly, Aiko bit the tip of her tongue in concentration and tried not to let her hand wobble as she copied stilted and blotchy figures next to the perfect printed versions.

"Pay attention, class," came the light scolding from the head of the classroom. The boy beside Aiko jerked guiltily, but she didn't react.

The teacher didn't frighten her. What was he going to do? Really, the power that he used to maintain classroom control was all dependent on the fact that children hadn't yet realized just how little he could do to keep them in line. The psychological intimidation wasn't going to work on a girl who was 21-going-on-4, and the elderly civilian man who taught her homeroom class at school wasn't about to resort to physical intimidation.

The twins had only been attending civilian school for a few short months, but the routine was solid enough that Aiko was taken aback when a pretty Chuunin with a wide smile and a red bow in her hair came to pick them up and took them to Hokage tower.

Aiko pressed her lips together in a stern expression that she knew was uselessly cute on her pudgy, pink-cheeked face and strained her toes toward the floor. Her feet were dangling over the edge of the plastic waiting room chair that she was seated quietly on. By contrast, Naruto had climbed up on top of his and was talking at a mile a minute to an obviously disinterested secretary and a now overwhelmed Chuunin.

' I know that Naruto is supposed to be close to the Sandaime. I should have suspected that they would meet soon.'

She watched silently, remaining aloof from the conversation that followed when they were escorted into the Hokage's office. Naruto was outright thrilled, bouncing around with all the energy that a four-year old jinchuuriki could muster (and that was an impressive amount of energy, to be frank).

"And what do you think, Aiko-chan?" the old man attempted to bring her into the conversation.

Aiko blinked, taking a moment to steady herself. What did she think?

' I think that you're pathetic for taking advantage of a little boy's loneliness and culturally homogenous hero worship of you in order to coerce him into agreeing to a military career years before he's mentally and emotionally capable of making that decision.'

Nope, that probably wasn't the best idea.

' No, don't sign me up for shinobi training. I don't want to be a ninja. It seems scary. I'm not scared of dying at all because everyone does, but I don't see any reason to get involved in a violent caste system and kill people for a living.'

She was going to be a ninja whether she wanted to be or not. She was four years old; no one was going to let her make her own decisions, and it would be a waste not to at least attempt to put the fourth Hokage's kids through the shinobi Academy.

In the end, she just shrugged and regarded the old man with cool turquoise eyes.

He seemed fairly off-put by her lackluster reaction, but gracefully enough turned back to Naruto. The blonde was an eager conversationalist, if not a particularly creative or clever one.

Aiko wasn't surprised to find herself bundled off to the shinobi academy when a new term started a month later. She was a bit surprised to find out that the other first year students were six years old, but a moment's thought wrapped up that mystery. The term lengths meant that their classmates would graduate at the age of twelve, which fit with what she remembered. Theoretically she and Naruto should probably graduate at ten, then, except that it seemed likely that the Academy was actually being used as a babysitter in their case and not a device to crank out soldiers even earlier than usual.

Putting the twins in the Academy meant that she and Naruto were under a trained and trusted shinobi's attention for the bulk of the day. It probably freed up their ANBU stalker for more important work. Like shaving cats, or going home and licking their mirrors. Whatever. The point was that it had to be mind-numbingly dull to stare at toddlers all day.

Accordingly, Aiko didn't trust the kind-faced woman who was their first teacher at the Academy. She didn't understand the type of person who would agree to spend so much time around so many children that weren't hers: or at least, do so in order to teach them to kill. It was hard for Aiko to dismiss that as a strongly developed maternal instinct, assuming as she did that it would be damn hard to teach class after class of cannon fodder when the majority of them died a year after graduation. But Katade-sensei didn't seem to be the ice-old that Aiko thought was necessary to survive that type of heartbreak.

'There's something wrong with her. She would be doing field work if there wasn't.'

Even if Katade-sensei hadn't kept a wide berth from the twins, Aikowouldn't have had a thing to do with her.

At least Naruto was easy to figure out, although she admittedly had an advantage. He had simple desires, as did the other carpet sharks in the Academy class. He wanted to play (and couldn't understand why no one played with him after they had talked with their parents) and he wanted to eat too much sugar (until he threw up, at which point he would try again) and he most certainly did not want to do his homework because it was legitimately too hard for him and he cried when he failed all his assignments.

Aiko spent two years with the smiling woman who taught very small children, and didn't understand her any more at the end than she had when she was four. Katade-sensei was a blank wall, even if her voice was kind.

Maybe it was a shinobi thing? Or maybe… Aiko frowned, rubbing her fingers against her copper-toned hair, ignoring the fact that it was slightly grubby from the outdoor part of class where they had practiced falls and done agility work. Maybe it was just something that some people could turn on and off. A figurative mask that kept the outside world from peeking underneath to what really mattered.

Funny that it took her so long to figure out that she had anything in common with sensei. Aiko's secrets were probably much bigger. She stuck by that opinion, even when Katade-sensei became increasingly thin, grey, and harried. One day she simply never returned to class.

She eyed the nervous young man who had replaced Katade-sensei with tired resignation.

"Ohayo, class," he forced out with a pathetic imitation of confidence. The following smile looked more than a bit queasy. "I'll be your teacher from now on. My name is Umino Iruka. Any questions?"

He fielded several queries about his hair, where sensei was, and if he had a girlfriend, before Iruka-sensei called on Aiko. His expression was guarded and a bit uncomfortable. She thought she knew why—she was sitting right next to Naruto. Iruka-sensei probably didn't know what to think.

"Is Katade-sensei dead?"

Aiko knew her blunt guess was true by the way that Iruka gaped at her. She settled back in her chair and shook her head. "Never mind," she said mildly, without care for the way that Hyuuga Neji's eyes narrowed at her or that an Akimichi girl with rosy cheeks looked about to burst into tears.

She didn't pay much attention to the rest of proceedings—roll call, syllabus, and other dull minutia. Her curiosity was satisfied.

'She's not really real anyways.'

"Hey," Naruto hissed, leaning over the space between them. The girl in front swiveled to give them both a dirty look, obviously confused by her inability to understand what the boy was saying.

Aiko gave the girl a dry, steady look until she turned around. Then she blinked at her otouto and replied likewise, in English. "What's up?"

"Why did you ask that?" Naruto's brow furrowed. "and do you think Iruka-sensei will be nicer than the last lady?"

"De- You there!" Iruka-sensei barked, sounding firm and scary for the first time. It only took him a moment to stride on long legs to the back of the classroom where the Uzumaki twins were sitting. He had eyes only for Naruto—angry brown eyes, specifically, and tense hands that clapped down on Naruto's desk as the teenager loomed. "Why would you think it was acceptable to talk in my classroom?"

Naruto's big blue eyes wavered in shock and hurt as he sank back into his chair, fighting off tears. Aiko inhaled steadily through her nose, gritted her jaw together painfully, and stared at Iruka-sensei with feelings that were less than pleasant. If he'd been asked to describe her eyes at the moment, he might have said that she looked like she thought he was trash on her shoe. It didn't matter. He wasn't looking at her.

"I would say not," Aiko said steadily into the sudden hush as Iruka glowered, waiting for an answer from a small child. She hadn't pegged him for a bully. It was a shame.

She ignored the bout of confused expressions at the use of a foreign language and carefully got out her favorite pencil, turning to the middle of her notebook and going back to practicing kanji. She didn't feel any need to clarify or explain herself. English was her first language, after all, and she had made it Naruto's as well. It wasn't as if anyone else had been lining up to teach him language skills and she had needed someone to talk to.

A strange person was vying for that, actually. When the new term had rolled around with a new class of six-year-olds, a great deal of them had been very familiar. Chibi Sasuke was the oddest of all, because he was such a friendly little thing.

If she didn't know better, she would say that he'd been pressured by his parents to befriend them. Unfortunately for the possibility of Uchiha-Uzumaki friendship, the brunet had shown Naruto up in aerial weaponry skills and classroom knowledge from the first week. Naruto was too embarrassed, jealous and resentful to accept Sasuke's clumsy overtures, and Sasuke was too guileless to understand that he would have better results if he made sure not to make Naruto feel inadequate.

It took him a while to attempt approaching her. Perhaps it was some little-boy instinct to try other boys before girls. It could just as easily have been that Aiko wasn't particularly approachable.

"Uzumaki-san?"

Itty bitty Sasuke had a bit of a lisp, she noted. That was unfairly cute.

"Would you like to share my bento?" He held the box out awkwardly, over-large baby eyes fixed studiously on the point between her eyes, as if he'd been taught to make eye contact was wasn't comfortable with it yet. "My mom makes a lot, and I just…" Sasuke trailed off, and dug at the floor with a sandal despite his attempts to look grownup.

"Thank you for the offer. I have my own lunch, though."

She left him standing there mildly flustered and pink, as if he didn't have a set response for someone being that rude. Yeah, he was an adorable kid, but he was just that: a kid. Naruto was all the kid she needed in her life, thank you very much. She wasn't a babysitter and it sounded absolutely exhausting to dumb herself down to a child's level in personal interactions as well as those she already had to perform for adults.

Despite her resolution to stay away, her eyes drifted over to Sasuke while Naruto was still scrambling to find his left shoe so they could leave for the day. The brunet all but ran to a woman in a gorgeous kimono with long dark hair whipping gently in the wind. Aiko watched for longer than was probably polite, but she never saw the woman who was probably Sasuke's mother turn around enough to get a clear look at her face.

Pity. She seemed oddly familiar. Maybe it was her hair—it was unfairly beautiful.

[theshirohi]

sometimes i wonder where my tendency to favor the term "flesh bag" for body came from. it might be this fic.  

i realized the useful of line breaks for scene breaks when Aiko was continuing Finding Nemo and then "Our great village was founded" ... and I thought wow she's really twisting the story and then cottoned on. I will tell my brain to just get gud.

'She’s not really real anyways.’ Giving her enough time to be semi-functional in body (say that age 2-3) and her being 6. hmm 3-ish years of processing and we're here.

here also marks Aiko saying what the audience thinks on unfairly pretty people.

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 1

Kushina had heard that giving birth was a noisy, messy, and painful affair. So far, the pain wasn't much worse than what she encountered in her day-job, she was relatively clean, and the noise was coming from the father-to-be's alternately terrified and thrilled chatter to the long-suffering midwife doing arcane things under the sheet covering Kushina's knees. She heard the muffled phrase, "Hokage-sama, I have done this before," for the third time, and tried not to laugh. It would hurt too much, she suspected.

Poor Sarutobi Biwako didn't seem to know if she wanted to be amused or kick Minato out of the delivery room. Patient woman. She was all but a saint, really.

Kushina gritted her teeth and tried not to react at the faces Minato was making, giving her genin teammate Mikoto a surreptitious hand-sign. It didn't really mean anything- it was an adaption of Minato's personal call sign with extra emphasis. The joke was at his expense, even if neither of them could quite verbalize how he was being teased for his near-panic.

The Uchiha grinned, her reserved nature overcome by her good mood. Kushina's smile became a little wider, until an especially vigorous contraction made her flinch. Her husband's eyes jumped to her face like she was an Iwa-nin with a big stick, looking just about as worried.

"Kushina!" Minato fluttered his hands in that girlish way he swore he didn't do, all but hovering at the slightest sign of discomfort.

"I'm fine," she stressed, working to keep signs of tiredness and effort off her face. "Honestly, 'ttebane, you'd think you were the one doing the work here! Why don't you calm down, huh?"

Mikoto snorted, and then ventured a guilty look at the Sandaime Hokage's wife, who was technically the senior physician present. The older woman didn't pay her any attention, but her assistant Taji-san leveled the Uchiha lady with an expression of amused tolerance that probably did nothing to make Mikoto feel less like a child.

"Hokage-sama!" Biwako-san said sternly, pulling her head up enough to give him a dark-eyed stare. Her tone implied that she was actually talking to an excitable child and not her military leader. "Calm yourself. Please focus your attention on the seal. Your wife is doing her work admirably, and you must do yours."

He probably wasn't meant to hear the muttered, "I always forget how weak and frightened men are, until I see one panic while his wife does all the hard work."

When Kushina looked over, Mikoto carefully pressed her lips into a thin line, forcing down visible amusement.

Mikoto wouldn't even have been present, had it not been for the fact that this birth was strenuous for so many reasons. Childbirth was enough of an ordeal on its own. When the mother was a jinchuuriki and having twins, it was terrifyingly complicated. Mikoto probably wouldn't be much help, but she was a certified medic nin and Kushina's best friend. At worst, she would be an extra set of hands to hold one infant while the more experienced medical ninja were occupied. She had to be there in case something went wrong.

She was probably doing a better job of helping keep Kushina calm than Minato, if truth were to be told.

An ugly smile had frozen on Kushina's face. Unbeknownst to her, it was considerably more worrisome than the screwed-up grimace she wanted to make. She swallowed, hard, and concentrated on pushing.

' I'd say I feel green, but my face is so hot I can only be red.'

Perfect. She really was the tomato woman.

"It's crowning."

Correction. She was the tomato woman half-way through giving birth to twins! Kushina crowed in victory, straining so hard that she was mildly concerned she had popped a vein. Surely it was all downhill from here.

Twins had been an unexpected surprise. As far as she knew, there wasn't an Uzumaki tendency towards multiple pregnancies. She'd blame this happy anomaly on Minato, but the first time she had tried, Mikoto had bored her to tears with a lecture about eggs.

'Eggs… I'm hungry. I could go for some victory ramen.' Kushina licked her dry lips, breathing through her nose. Minato misinterpreted the motion and hastily tipped a bit of ice-cold water into her mouth. She swallowed automatically and gave her twitchy husband a dry look.

Minato blinked down at her, painfully eager to do anything he could to alleviate her discomfort, even as his right hand remained firmly planted on the seal over her belly.

And suddenly she didn't have the heart to call him a dimwit pretty boy. It was too easy of a target, really. She could bully him later.

'He's going to be on diaper duty,' Kushina decided seriously, grinning with far too much teeth. 'I did the hard work for ten months, so I think he can have that minor problem for twenty months.'

Hokage, ho-shmag-e. His job was important, sure, but not as important as their budding family. Twins was an awesome start, actually! It was so exciting, she was minutes away from being a parent. She was going to be the best mom ever. She'd take her babies everywhere and they'd fingerpaint together and she would teach them how to mess up their daddy's hair so that he squawked and flailed and- and- She was so happy.

"Uhhh," Kushina huffed, squeezing her eyes shut. She could do without this part, though.

There was a perfectly timed four-person gasp in the next moment, which Kushina barely heard over the ringing in her ears and the slick, struggling feeling of a decent amount of matter making an ungraceful exodus out of her uterus. Her gut roiled, and she couldn't breathe for a moment, as the second mass –now distinguishable from the first feisty infant—moved down to fill the void where the other had been.

"Girl," Biwako-san called briskly. After a moment, there was a shocked wail. Kushina heaved her head up through sheer force of will, straining for a glimpse. All she saw was Taji-san carefully cleaning what looked like a bundle of blankets, taking measurements and scans of some sort while Mikoto hurriedly copied them down on a clip board.

'A girl, a girl, a girl,' Kushina chanted over the sounds of Taji soothing the infant, tears welling up from both pain and relief. That was odd, they'd thought the pregnancy was two identical boys, not a set of fraternal twins. Ha. They were going to have to go back to their old list of names. They'd never decided on a girl's name.

Neither of them actually cared about the gender, of course, but it gave her something silly to think about and keep her mood light while Minato worked on ensuring that she didn't inadvertently kill them with her uterus (or something. She was a bit fuzzy on the details of fuinjutsu-uterus interaction).

'Maybe we'll let Mikoto-chan pick, since she's the godmother,' Kushina thought deliriously, heart so light with joy that it might rise out of her chest.

Her hand twitched on the bedsheet. Kushina gritted her teeth and avoided the urge to take her husband's hand. She wanted to touch him right now, but he needed his hands and attention. Not being able to hold his hand right now was a small sacrifice in exchange for safely bringing two little Uzumaki into the world.

'I want to see them so badly,' she thought wistfully, for what had to have been the hundredth time. It'd be the first time she'd seen another Uzumaki since Mito-sama had given her the Nine-Tailed fox.

An ugly groan tore her from her thoughts. It took a moment to recognize that the sound had come from her lips. Kushina blinked dazedly, registering in the back of her mind that Mikoto-chan and Taji-san were having a hushed conversation over her baby-

"Check my readings, would you-"

"Odd-"

"-isproportional ratio of spiritu-"

Was something wrong? Distressed, Kushina tried to sit up on her cushions a bit more, eyes wide.

"Relax," Biwako-san cautioned. "Your girl is healthy. Do not fret. You shall see your children in a moment. You're doing very well, Kushina-chan."

With supreme effort, Kushina nodded. Biwako-san was right. She needed to keep working on her second child, and let the medics handle the first. Still, she noted that Mikoto-chan had finished filling out a chart and birth certificate, and was instead holding the bundle of green blankets that had to be her baby. Kushina could swear that she caught sight of a messy shock of wispy red hair—not a true, dark shade like hers, but something closer to the twists of orange in a sunset.

Then the spot of color was out of her line of sight as the Chuunin crooned, gently swaying with her burden. A beatific smile cracked across the small woman's face as she settled down in the back of the room, as far away from the commotion as possible.

' Mikoto-chan is going to be an amazing godmother. I know it.'

Better than Mina-kun's choice of his scruffy sensei for godfather, but Kushina didn't really mind. She liked Jiraiya. His books were actually pretty funny. She'd used them to tease her genin teammates so many times—Shiba-kun still stuttered everytime someone so much as mentioned the word 'sex', despite having an infant of his own now.

The transition between being pregnant and being a mother was a disorienting one that rocked her body. Not more painful, exactly, but birth and after-birth were definitely memorable sensations. As soon as her head stopped spinning, Kushina heard Biwako-san's voice.

"A boy, Kushina-chan," the satisfied midwife declared, giving the medical check herself. That was odd, but Kushina didn't think about it. "And he's in perfect health!"

'A boy? Aw, well, they can't both be super-surprising right at the start,' Kushina decided with a wild sort of joy. Naruto it was, then. Uzumaki Naruto had such a nice ring to it. She craned, trying to catch the first glimpse of her baby boy before Mikoto spirited him away to snuggle too.

"He's gorgeous," Taji-san added with a smile, beginning to gently towel him clean.

Minato took a deep, shuddering breath. For the first time Kushina saw that his eyes were swimming with unshed tears of happiness. The warm hands on her abdomen gently rose, and for a moment, he looked at her. The adoration in his gaze stunned her silent.

"Biwako-sama," he breathed, turning his head toward the tiny woman with the long brown ponytail. "May I-"

"No," Biwako-san said bluntly. Kushina let out a surprised peal of laughter at the pure shock on her husband's face. "The mother should see her children first. Mikoto-san, are you planning on stealing that baby, or may Kushina-chan see her daughter?"

Mikoto-chan stood with a rustle of clothing as quickly as she could, face burning bright red at the scolding.

Normally, Kushina would have drank in that sight gleefully. But Biwako-san had just nestled her baby boy in Kushina's waiting arms, and was peeling down a soft blanket to reveal-

A blade, sticking out of the front of Biwako-san's chest. Kushina's grip on her son nearly slipped out of pure shock.

Biwako-san gave a surprised gurgle, even as Taji-san shrieked and then fell, hot blood flying over Kushina's bare feet and the wet slap of meat falling against tile was a shocked counterpoint to the sudden coldness in Kushina's arms where a warm baby had been only an instant before. She didn't even register Biwako-san's knees buckling or the sound of Mikoto's sandaled feet skittering backwards.

She was too busy frozen, staring up at the masked man who was holding her baby boy with the business end of a kunai far, far too close to the delicate bundle. Minato was frozen—not in shock, but paralyzed by the underhanded threat. Even by shinobi standards, that was low.

"Oh kami," Mikoto whispered, shockingly loud in the silence.

"Fourth Hokage," slipped out from behind the sleek, abstract mask in a sinfully smooth rumble. Kushina felt like a rabbit, frozen in fear as she hadn't been before or since the day that she was kidnapped by Kumo-nin after her bloodline. "I wouldn't move if I were you."

"Please," Kushina begged, not even knowing what she was asking for. If it was possible, the pain on Minato's face became even harder to bear.

She couldn't tell, but the glance the masked man leveled on her might have been pity or condescension.

"How badly do you want this, I wonder?"

This? This? Not a person, not a sweet baby boy, but an object?

"Come and take him from me."

And then both men were gone. Kushina wailed, in the instant before her mind caught up with her. Mikoto-chan rushed over, red eyes wide and fearful in her pale face. Kushina was already forcing herself to stand.

"What do we do? Wai- Kushina, you can't be up right now! You just gave birth."

"Don't care," Kushina gasped, forcing feeling into her numb legs and ignoring the feeling of wetness against her thighs. She stepped over Biwako-san and Taji-san with a one-minded determination despite the scream of grief in her mind, moving to the streets. "It shouldn't be hard to find the fight. I-"

She cut herself off, shocked despite reason at the sight of four mangled, bloody corpses just outside the door to her delivery room. Had she given it thought she would have known that the ANBU guard must have been defeated, but-

"What about your daughter?" Mikoto asked in a hushed tone, clearly scanning for enemies or traps. "What if he wants her too?"

Kushina whirled on her long-time friend and grabbed her shoulders. "Miko-chan, can I ask you a favor?" she asked with a choked laugh.

Mikoto-chan blinked away tears. "Anything."

"Get my baby to the Hokage tower. There'll be plenty of backup there. I'll meet you as soon as I can, alright? If I get back my son, then that man won't be able to use him against Minato." She leaned over and pushed down a bit of fabric with trembling fingers before placing a kiss to the sweet little forehead she hadn't yet had chance to examine. "Mikoto-oba-san will keep you safe, okay," she promised waveringly, trying not to cry.

"Yes, I will," Mikoto-chan agreed, leaning her forehead against Kushina in the closest approximation to a hug she could manage while holding an infant. "I'll take the underground. Through ANBU."

"Good idea."

With that, Uchiha Mikoto watched her best friend disappear into the twilight with a heavy heart. After a moment, she moved to re-cover the infant and held the girl closely to her chest. "Don't worry, sweetheart," she whispered. "Mama's gonna save the day."

Only then did she realize that the infant was oddly silent—as if she had been shocked into fearful quiet by the rapid events. But she couldn't possibly comprehend what was going on, she was less than an hour old. Ridiculous. It felt like an omen, that even the baby acknowledged the seriousness of the situation. But Mikoto forced those thoughts away and instead took advantage of the silence as a blessing, moving rapidly towards what she hoped was safety.

Of course, when an explosion of red-hot chakra seeped in unholy fury washed across her not ten minutes later, Mikoto wept out loud.

'Kushina, be safe,' she prayed, despite suspecting that her best friend was already dead.

A very confused and unhappy girl in the hospital got her own name two days after the blur of pressure and noise and the swish of pretty dark hair that had defined her first day in the world of chakra and shinobi.

It was lucky that she was even awake long enough to register the incident. The sound of childish wails in the hospital nursery was constant enough that she had learned to sleep through it, and infants seemed to do nothing but sleep. She opened her eyes despite not being able to interpret the human-shaped blurs that moved around her. Her sight was poor, but her keen hearing did her no good because the sounds she recognized as language certainly weren't in her language.

When she was picked up by warm hands and bundled against a bony male chest while the woman who had lifted her hovered nearby, she awoke enough to squint up at the pointy blur that she assumed was a face.

To be fair to her confusion, it didn't really fit the pattern for a face. The top half of the shape was right—there was a shock of light colored hair, a pointy nose, and a dark grey eye. But only one eye. And try as she might, she couldn't pick out a mouth.

The boy holding her had to have one, however, because the slight rumble of his chest coincided with the sounds that bubbled up around her. When an over large hand appeared in her field of vision she grabbed at it instinctively, and followed it back to a much more conventional face. It had two eyes and everything, as well as pretty red lips.

Without a conscious decision, she gurgled and tightened her grip around the finger offered. Red lips split into a tired smile.

The only word she caught out of what the woman said next was 'Aiko', and that was only because it had been in the short phrase spoken a moment earlier by the boy holding her. She fell asleep almost immediately. It took a few more days for her to realize that Aiko was her name.

October fourteenth

"You did not recognize the man who attacked?" Sarutobi Hiruzen repeated, his dry tone implying that he didn't find the statement particularly persuasive.

Uchiha Mikoto bristled a little bit, before Fugaku's calming presence at her side brought her back to earth. He wouldn't want to see her lose her temper. "No," she said, as calmly as she could manage. "I did not recognize him. As I said, he was wearing a mask."

"Just one man killed four ANBU operatives, my wife" –his voice shook- "a Chuunin medic-nin, and led to the deaths of the Yondaime Hokage and his wife not two hours later. You were the only person that he spared who might tell of what had been done. That seems like the kind of man you might remember."

Mikoto exchanged a disturbed look with her husband.

"Are you attempting to imply that my wife has lied about what she witnessed?" Fugaku asked, disapproval and shock warring for prominence in his tone.

There was a moment of silence, and then the Hokage painted on a smile that did not seem particularly genuine. "No, of course not."

That meant yes.

"You must understand, however," he continued, "that the situation is unusual."

"Keeping orphans away from their legal guardian?" Fugaku butted in. "I would say so, yes."

His mouth shut so suddenly that his teeth clacked when the Sandaime gave him a hard-eyed look with the full brunt of his displeasure. The power couple were unpleasantly reminded that no matter how old, no matter how diminished, the man in front of them was their superior in every meaning of the word.

"You are of course aware that the person who released the Nine-Tailed fox had to have been an Uchiha," the Sandaime said quietly.

The world tilted.

"What?" Mikoto let the word fall from her lips without thought for how undignified it was. "That is-"

"Absurd, a children's story!" Fugaku continued, his voice like thunder. "It is utterly baseless, an accusation without merit."

Now that his pride had been offended he went on furiously, and Mikoto squeezed her eyes shut just for a moment. She wished that her husband would keep his temper. He had wanted to come to provide her support in making her arguments, but if he became aggressive, her chances of leaving with her two youngest babies were harmed.

"Please, Hokage-sama," she broke in, her quiet voice forcing her husband to flicker his eyes to her and stop talking. "I do not understand. Kushina-chan made me the guardian of her children. Let me take my babies and go home. They are all I have left of her. Surely you do not claim that I would do less than my best to care for the twins, or that I am incapable. I have the time, the love, and the resources to give them a better life than their parents had."

That was a low blow, and it made the Sandaime cringe, just a little. Kushina and Minato had both been orphaned at young ages. Neither of them would have wanted that for their children. And Mikoto was an excellent mother.

"We can provide everything they will ever need," Fugaku broke in, perhaps sensing that the Sandaime was weakening. "The Yondaime's children will want for nothing."

His statement had the opposite effect it was intended to. The Sandaime's face creased in disapproval. "Uchiha-dono, no one but the clan heads now know that those children belonged to the Yondaime," Hiruzen said stiffly. "We must take that name out of the discussion completely when we place the children. While it was impossible to keep Kushina-chan's pregnancy a secret and many will be looking for her child, any considerations related to their father are counterproductive."

In other words, the Sandaime thought that Fugaku wanted the twins because of the prestige they could bring the clan. He wasn't wrong, exactly. Fugaku would have supported Mikoto's bid for Kushina's children if they were not politically important. But since they were, his interest was piqued.

Her husband's face soured momentarily, but he wasn't fazed. "Then we shall absorb them into the clan without giving hint as to their parentage."

"A blonde boy and a redheaded girl," Sarutobi remarked dryly. "They will not blend in well with your clan."

"We can color their hair," Fugaku dismissed. "I assume that you planned to deny them their name, in order to keep them secret. We can offer them a surname and the protection that comes with it."

"They will become officially known as Uzumaki to honor their mother when the time comes to fill out their Academy paperwork," Hiruzen said mildly, picking up his pipe and tapping at it. "Until then, nameless they shall remain."

Fugaku clearly didn't understand why the Hokage would choose to treat the children as peasant orphans when they could have the prestige of a clan name, but forged ahead regardless. "They would be as my own children," he continued stiffly.

"And then in twenty years Naruto would be Hokage and Aiko-chan would be married to Itachi," Hiruzen said dryly.

Mikoto tried not to wince. That had probably been Fugaku's plan, yes, with the exception that Fugaku probably wouldn't have cared which of his sons Aiko ended up marrying.

The village was nowhere near ready to accept an Uchiha kage. But the child of the Yondaime, raised by the Uchiha—that would be a different matter, one that inextricably tied the clan to the highest echelons of the village for generations to come. It would be the political coup of the century.

But that wasn't what she cared about (though she wouldn't protest too loudly either if it happened naturally). Mikoto did not want to use Kushina's babies as devices for political positioning. She wanted to love them and raise them well in honor of her dead friend.

She realized with a sinking heart that it was too late. Now that Fugaku and the Sandaime were thinking of the twins in terms of their political value, the legal protection of her supposed guardianship and the emotional arguments she could muster would do no good.

'He mentioned that the clan heads all knew of the twins' parentage,' Mikoto suddenly realized, connecting an unpleasant thought. She voiced her suspicion, already knowing the answer.

"Other clans have already petitioned for guardianship," she said flatly.

Hiruzen looked mildly surprised at her leap in logic, but nodded in acknowledgment after a moment. "Yes," he agreed. "They have."

The snub caused Fugaku to freeze in shock for a moment. Their legal petition for guardianship was being blocked by clan politics. All the other clans should have been able to recognize that the Uchiha claim was the strongest and backed down. That they didn't meant that their clan's position was far more tenuous than they had realized.

The Uchiha power couple seemed to take a deep breath as one. "This childish accusation," Fugaku said stiffly, "has poisoned the Uchiha clan's good name." When that garnered nothing but a steady stare, he prompted; "What would you have me do to prove our innocence?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen gave a thin, tired smile that implied there was little that the Uchiha could do, or that they would not like the options. "Find the masked man," he said delicately, skirting around his obvious skepticism of Mikoto's un-collaborated story. "Convince the other clans that the Uchiha were not at fault." His eyes moved to Mikoto alone. "Persuade Jiraiya to give up his legal claim to guardianship."

She pressed her lips shut to keep from gaping at the unfairness there. Jiraiya was long gone from the village, and didn't look to be returning any time soon. It seemed that the Hokage had appointed himself Jiraiya's spokesperson, and he was clearly immune to her persuasion. Becoming the twins' sole guardian seemed all but impossible. Nor would she want to wrest Jiraiya's honorary parenthood away, even if she thought she could cow him or his mentor. However ill-suited he was to childcare, the twins were all he had left of Minato-san. She couldn't do that to him.

"Very well," Fugaku said stiffly, acknowledging the demands without agreeing. "Please excuse my wife and I, Hokage-sama." He gave a faultlessly proper bow that Mikoto echoed dully, though the move was not as deep and deferential as it would have been on another occasion.

Etiquette demanded that she echo the farewell, but Mikoto kept her lips together and merely gave the Hokage a baleful stare before she turned to follow her husband away.

A chill raised the tiny hairs at the back of Mikoto's neck as she truly considered, for the first time, what the Sandaime's stress and suspicions might lead him to suspect of her in particular. As she was the only surviving witness…

It didn't look good for her argument that the Uchiha had been uninvolved.

The fact that she had been spared was puzzling even to Mikoto, however. That unfortunately meant that she couldn't explain it. Kushina had made it out of that room because the masked man had needed to trick her into the open where the Nine-Tailed fox could be released. Perhaps Mikoto had been spared as a smokescreen against his true intentions? Or… had her salvation been in the fact that she was holding the other infant?

Mikoto tried not to let her doubt and confusion show on her face. She wouldn't have killed a woman holding in infant unless there was no other choice, but she had seen that masked man hold a kunai to an infant. Surely he didn't possess such sentimentality and reserve.

'He called Naruto-kun 'it',' Mikoto remembered. 'He had already rationalized that Naruto-kun was a tool for him to use. If he had really intended to kill Naruto-kun, he would be dead.' She shuddered. She hadn't considered it before, but the masked man must have been gentle and conscientious of the burden in his arms in order to avoid harming a newborn while engaged in a fight against the babe's father.

The theory that a soft spot for babies had saved her life was looking a little more likely. That didn't change the fact that the most obvious explanation, to the Sandaime at least, was that the masked man had spared her because she was the clan head's wife.

Being the Uchiha clan head's wife apparently carried much less currency than it had a week prior, however. It was positively unheard of for a custody dispute like this. When Mikoto managed to calm her breathing, she almost couldn't believe what had just happened.

This wasn't the Hokage unfairly refusing her good claim. This was the Hokage illegally retracting the guardianship that she had possessed the moment that Minato and Kushina had passed on. She knew her husband wasn't going to take this well. The Uchiha had fallen far indeed when they didn't receive the legal protection offered to other citizens.

Her heart sunk low even as she arrived home and took solace in cuddling Sasuke and breathing in his sweet baby scent. The situation seemed grim, but she wasn't giving up. This wasn't over. It didn't matter if the Hokage disagreed: she wouldn't leave those children alone, even if she couldn't take them in. There had to be something else she could do.

[theshirohi]

*in sotto* you got this. you're gonna be a diligent, if not eloquent reviewer nor a reblogger with tag game. you're gonna honor this undertaking of putting all of Aiko with consistent tags in one place. Who cares if you did just do a re-read and your eyes are acting shifty. they stop you from ruining your sleep schedule and then looking up realizing your ain't comment a dang word. we. got. this. No promises on coherency. Kushina is cool man. I wish we got to see her be with the fam for more than two mins. Where's her chakra ghost? We've seen the fanart. but like I want a pantone color swatch on what sunset orange-red hair means. the world asks for a lot of unwritten AUs. The twins raised by the Uchihas is one of them  postscript. I think I trapped myself into public reblogs. Comments aren’t long enough. Private reblogs are a truly an unhinged monologue series if I keep to my plan. 

[oo111111]

[ateezdata]

200208 the fellowship seoul

VIOLET! • do not edit.

[verseoks]

here is six seconds of san saying purple

[saniscute]

San’s smile is so pretty omg

[fyjjong]

to early emphasis: dear cloud’s nine has confirmed that she was asked by jonghyun to post his final note before passing to fans. she has also confirmed that she was given the blessing from his family to share it with the world. you can find confirmation of this here. below will be proper triggers for this post as it is not easy to read. i will also leave nine’s comment that she left on her post as it is important in regards to why she was asked to post it. if you feel that i have missed any please do not hesitation message me on my personal blog (jaekyung) and i will add them as quickly as i am able to. also thank you to sonexstella for translating. —- trigger warning(s): death tw, depression tw, suicide ideation tw, suicide tw nine: i said my final goodbye with jonghyunnie. even after seeing his smiling portrait of the deceased, it still feels like jonghyunnie will come to me and smile as if all of this was a dream. starting from awhile back, jonghyunnie told me his dark and deep internal stories. i think each day was very difficult for him. i kept having uneasy thoughts so i made it known to his family and tried my hardest to capture his heart but it only ended up postponing time and i could not block his last (action). i still cannot believe he is not in this world and it’s so painful. i’m still afraid, not knowing if it’s the right thing to upload these words but jonghyun himself asked me to please upload these words if he disappeared from this world. i wished this day would never come … after discussing with his family i am uploading his final note, according to his last wishes. i think that there must be a reason why he left this up to me. i worry that there will be controversy. however, i think that he predicted this and asked me, so i decided that i will do the one last thing i can do for jonghyunnie. i hope everyone knows now that jonghyun was not alone and that he worked hard … that he did really well … please thank him for withstanding well … beautiful jonghyun, i really love you a lot. going forward, i will love you a lot. in that place, please don’t be in pain and i hope you will be peaceful … —- i am broken from the inside. depression that slowly ate away at me ended up swallowing me. i couldn’t beat it. i hated myself. i held onto memories that have died out and, even though i shouted to snap out of it, there was no response. if suffocating breaths will not open up it’s better instead to stop. i asked who can take responsibility for myself. it’s you. i was completely alone. it’s easy to say you’ll end it. it’s hard to end it. i lived up to now admist that difficulty. you said i wanted to run away. that’s right. i wanted to run away. from myself. from you. i asked who was there. i said it was me. again, it was me. and once again, it was me. i asked why i kept losing memories. it’s my personality. i see. in the end, it’s all my fault. i hoped someone would notice, but no one knew. never met me, so of course, no one knew i was there. i asked why i was living. just. just. everyone just lives. if i asked why someone would die, you would say you’re exhausted. i suffered from concern. i never learned how to change tiresome pains into joy. pain is just pain. i urged myself not to be like that. why? why can’t i end it according to my own will? i tried to find out why i was in pain. i knew too well. i am in pain because of myself. it’s all because it’s my fault and because i’m foolish. teacher, did you want to hear these words? no. i did nothing wrong. when he blamed my personality with a quiet voice i thought it was so easy to be a doctor. it’s fascinating to see why i’m in this much pain. people who have more hardships than i do live well. people who are weaker than me live well. maybe that’s not it. of people who are alive, there is no one who has more hardships than i do, and who is weaker than i am. despite this, i was told to live. i asked why this is the case a hundred times, and it’s never for me. it’s for you. i wanted it to be for me. please don’t say things you don’t know. find out why it’s difficult. i told you many times why it’s difficult for me. with that, is it not possible for it to be this difficult? does there need to be more concrete drama? are you wanting more of a story? i already told you. did you not pay attention? what i can overcome doesn’t leave a scar. colliding with the world must not have been my fate. being known to the world must not have been my life. that’s why everything was difficult. colliding, and being known was difficult. why did i chose that. it’s a funny incident. it’s commendable that i was able to withstand up to this point. what more can i say? just tell me i worked hard. that i did a good job. that i went through a lot. even if you can’t smile, please don’t send me off in blame. you worked hard. you went through a lot. goodbye.

[bluespock-blog]

[sunshine-captain]

bluespock:

Wise words from a wise man

[dessinsdefrancofous]

yes our teeth and ambitions are bared….

[anneimator]

If you haven’t listened to Hamilton: The Musical yet, please. Please do.

[red-roses-and-tea]

1945-1989

By: 虫圭@自家通販中

**Permission to upload this was given by the artist**