I waited outside the hospital for Naruto to arrive, and was mildly surprised to see Sasuke in tow when he did.
"Lucky Sevens together again, nah?" I said cheerfully, as we brushed past reception. Naruto seemed to know where he was going.
Sasuke gave me a bland look. "Don't call us that," he said. "It'll stick."
"I didn't think it was that bad," I teased. "It's pretty funny even."
"You say that now," he said.
I shrugged. "Better the 'Rookie Nine', though you have to give it points for being descriptive."
We wove through a waiting room where there was a single Chunin flipping idly through an out of date gardening magazine, and knocked on a door.
"Hey Ranmaru!" Naruto called, stepping inside.
I was a little surprised. When Naruto had said 'apprentice' and described him like Haku, I had thought he would be our age. But he wasn't. Seven or eight at most, and very small. Youth didn't mean he wasn't dangerous but… Maybe that accounted for Tsunade's lenience.
He had blue hair and red eyes. Why was it always red eyes? Why couldn't there be a doujutsu that was a nice shade of green? But no, it was always red.
"Naruto," Ranmaru said quietly, but he smiled. "You came to visit me."
"Yeah, well I said I would, didn't I?" Naruto said awkwardly. "This is Sasuke and Shikako, my teammates."
I waved. "Hey. Welcome to Konoha."
Sasuke offered a nod, and Naruto took off chattering. I had a quick nosy at the hospital notes sitting by the foot of the bed, but it was only Care And Feeding Of type instructions, so there was a limited amount I could glean from that.
"So, I forgot to ask last time, but Raiga was one of the Mist Swordsmen, right? Did you ever see this blue guy, with a bandage wrapped sword?" Naruto asked.
"You mean Kisame?" Ranmaru asked. He frowned. "I know he slipped away from Kiri, but I don't know any more than that…"
"Aww, man," Naruto complained. "That's nothing."
"Sorry."
"No, it's not your fault." Naruto waved a hand. "We just ran into him once."
Even Sasuke looked a little disappointed at the lack of information. I guessed that Naruto had used the possibility as an excuse to drag him along.
It wasn't much longer before we left, though Naruto managed to convince us both to go to Ichiraku with him. It wasn't even lunchtime yet. Distance apparently made the heart grow fonder, because we both caved with minimal arguing. Sasuke barely did more than sigh.
"Oh, hey! Old man Genno!" Naruto called, sliding into the seat. "You're having an early lunch!"
The old man looked up in surprise, but chuckled warmly. "Ah, Naruto! I haven't seen you in a while. Yes, we just finished the last of the Academy upgrades this morning, which means my contract is finished. I was here to celebrate with a last bowl of Ichiraku."
Sasuke and I slid into seats next to Naruto and ordered from Ayame. Somehow, it didn't surprise me at all that Naruto made friends with other ramen stand patrons.
"So you're leaving Konoha then?" Naruto said, looking a little crestfallen. "That sucks! We won't be able to see each other anymore. But I guess you're going to go treasure hunting with your grandson like you said, now, right?"
"Yes, that's right. It's been a long time since I had a good treasure hunt." He looked a little wistful. "Actually, it's lucky that you're here. I had a bit of a present for you, before I went." He winked. "It's a surprise though. You'll have to wait till tomorrow."
Naruto practically vibrated in his seat. "A present?! For me? No way!" He then proceeded to pester the guy for details, and got nowhere.
I smiled, but politely stayed out of the obviously familiar conversation.
.
.
However tempting it was to hang out with Naruto and Sasuke all day – and it was tempting – I left after we'd batted each other around the training field for a good hour. I had things to do.
Things that I had been putting off.
I wandered back to the Nara compound, going over the potential conversations in my head, the way I would plan a battle. It helped keep the nerves under control.
I walked slowly, curving through the woods, past a small clumping of houses until I found the one I wanted. I didn't bother knocking on the door; he wouldn't be inside anyway.
Kasuga Nara sighed when he saw me. "Your brother just left, girl," he complained. "No point looking for him here."
I bobbed a quick bow. "I know, ojii-san."
He wasn't my grandfather– Shikano Nara's death during the Third Shinobi War had been what promoted dad to Clan Head – but he was grandfatherly enough. Clever and cagey, but still kind, and he'd been the one supervising our training while dad was gone. I figured he was knowledgeable enough – and experienced enough – to be my best chance of getting answers.
That answer didn't make him happy, no matter how politely I'd said it. "Oh," he said, a displeased twist to his lips. "This is going to be one of those conversations isn't it." He looked me over, a long, shrewd stare.
I tried not to fidget, but didn't say anything. The more I said, the more I gave away. If I gave things away, it would at least have to be for benefit, not in the opening moves of the game.
"Go on then, girl," he said at last. "Make us some tea. And do it properly!"
I shuffled inside, switching my sandals for house slippers as I went. 'Properly' meant not just banging a tea bag and some hot water in a cup, though thankfully not the full bowing and scraping of a formal tea ceremony. I would probably wouldn't have come here until I was desperate, if I thought I would have to go to those lengths.
I shuffled back outside with the tea tray, and set it down on the veranda, kneeling down in seiza beside it to mirror Kasuga. I poured the tea, and waited until he'd taken the first considering sip.
"Alright," he said. "What is it? Though, if it's womanly problems, I reserve the right to tell you to go ask your mother."
I was at once bemused by the sheer idea that I would come to him with womanly problems in the first place – and what did that even mean, honestly – and jumpy with anxiety over having to initiate this conversation.
"I'm good," I said dryly, taking a sip of green tea. I let the cup rest on my knees. "The clan jutsu." I paused, both to pick my words carefully, and also partially in hope that he would take the opening and answer my questions before I had to ask them.
He didn't.
Well, I'd always known I wasn't going to get out of this without admitting that something was wrong.
"There are side effects, to the clan jutsu, aren't there?" I asked, carefully casual.
"There can be," he agreed, neutrally. "Especially if you do it wrong. Sometimes, even if you do it right."
I nodded. Took a calming breath. "What are the common consequences of incorrect usage?"
There was a pause. Of course he knew what I was really asking. I knew what I was admitting to. I hated to admit it, but I needed to know what to do next.
"Why don't you tell me what's wrong," he said. "And then I will tell you why."
"Sometimes," I said, "when I use the clan jutsu, I hear an echo."
Kasuga's hands stilled around his cup. The look he gave me was just as steady and assessing as the first. "An echo of what?"
"Me." It sounded dumb. But I kept silent, resisted the urge to try and explain further, because there weren't really words that I could use to explain. I'd only babble and get myself all tangled up. Everything I could try boiled down to that. He'd either understand, or he wouldn't.
"Oh, girl. You always were the problem child." He sighed. "When did it start?"
"Only recently," I said, even though I wasn't sure it was completely true. But I'd split myself, and that was the part that worried me.
He took a sip of his tea. "I'm sure your father gave you the run down on the dangers of spiritual manipulation."
"That's why I'm here," I responded. I knew the seriousness of it.
"Don't get snippy with me," he chided. "Your little echo is what happens when things don't line up quite right."
I nodded, because I'd realised that much.
"The problem," he explained. "Is cohesion. Ideally, you want to be manipulating your energy so that it maintains the same shadow-density throughout. The best way for that to happen is to have all your spiritual energy on the same wavelength and cycling interchangeably. In theory, easy enough. In practice, it's not an ideal that's easy to live up to."
I frowned. That was all information I knew, but put together like this was giving me a niggling of an answer. "What happens when there are … different densities? How do you get different densities in spiritual energy?"
He huffed. "How do you think, girl? It's spiritual energy. It's made up of all your thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams. You strengthen one part over another, they don't mix together properly and all of a sudden you get gradients. If the differences get too extreme… that would be your little echo."
Shit. I could see it. How it had happened, though… I'd always considered myself to be fairly self-aware. Sure, I put things to the side, sometimes, but it wasn't like I was fooling myself.
Was I?
"How do I fix it?" I asked flatly.
Kasuga gave me a long, mildly amused look. "That very much depends on what you mean by 'fix'."
It was too much to hope that it would be simple or easy, of course. I knew that much. But the prevarication didn't make me any happier.
"To make it go away?" I suggested.
"Quit as a ninja," he said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. "Stop using shadow jutsu at all."
"No." It wasn't an option. I couldn't let it be an option. There had to be something else.
"Then that's not what you mean by 'fixed'," he said, equally straight forward.
I tried to hide the face I made by drinking my tea. I suspected that it didn't work very well. "Then how about something like… controlled with enough assurance that I can be trusted to operate on missions and not endanger people around me?"
The worst thing I could think of – the most terrible, horrifying thing – would be to become Yakumo. To wake up and know that I had been the one to kill someone I cared about. It was that possibility, shoved so brutally in my face, that made me search for answers.
Kasuga turned the full weight of his attention on me. "Did something happen, Shikako?"
I pulled back, feeling too exposed. "No. I just want to eliminate it as a possibility." Nothing had happened, not with me. I just didn't want it to get to the point where it did.
"Do you think it is a possibility?" he asked.
I hesitated. How should I know? I wasn't the expert on shadow jutsu, here. I was guessing blindly. "I don't want it to be."
He stared at me for a long time, frown settling between his eyes. I began to feel like I'd made a mistake. Somehow, somewhere along the line, I had made a mistake.
"I have some exercises you can do," he said finally. He stood with a groan and a creaking knee. "Come inside."
.
.
I woke, close to four am, from the sound of a muffled explosion.
It was distant, maybe even clear on the other side of Konoha, but unmistakable all the same. I listened carefully, but there was no follow up explosion. There was no alarm. There was nothing.
I got up.
No alarm meant there was no immediate response necessary. But I doubted there were many shinobi in Konoha that could hear an explosion in the middle of the night and not worry.
I moved through the house until I could look out the window and have a clear view of a signalling station. Sure enough, the village security level had been increased, and there was an additional 'curfew in effect' lamp burning. There was an 'in pursuit of suspect' signal, but none of the lights that indicated who was in charge of the operation, or who to defer to if you became caught up in it.
"Anbu," Shikamaru murmured behind me, fighting a yawn. "Go back to sleep."
I made an agreeable sound, leaning on the window frame. Want to remind me how safe the village is? I didn't say.
.
.
There was a knock on the door while we were still eating breakfast. I could tell it was Sasuke – I'd felt his chakra come – and wondered if it were too much to hope that he was just stopping by for food.
It was.
"Mission," he said curtly, looking far too awake. I wondered if he'd been up for whatever had happened last night.
"Both of us?" Shikamaru asked with a yawn, eyes flicking over to me. "What a drag."
Sasuke shrugged a shoulder. "You have to report to the Hokage. We're supposed to collect the rest of the team."
"How many?" I asked, hurriedly finishing eating so I could go grab my stuff.
"Us, Team Eight, Team Ten and Team Gai," Sasuke replied.
I paused and looked over at him. "All of the Konoha Twelve, huh?" Damn. It must be something big. I was literally only just finished with my medical leave. I hadn't even reported in for a change in status yet.
Shikamaru stood and stretched his arms above his head. "Troublesome," he muttered, clicking his neck to the side. "I guess I better go and see what Hokage-sama wants." He sounded completely unenthusiastic, grabbing his Chunin vest from the hook by the door.
I sighed. "Gimme a second?" I asked, rushing up the stairs to get changed into more mission appropriate gear.
There was no rest for the wicked, around here.