Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. ~ Unknown
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It was silly, but after Naruto left, I almost expected to blink and find that three years had gone by.
Which was… it was silly.
This was my life. It didn't work like that.
Just because Naruto wasn't here, didn't mean that there weren't things happening.
I went training with Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei because we were all there. Sensei wasn't exactly healed or participating, but he had a lot of advice to offer and I knew it was things we needed to work on. Sasuke and I had been practicing our blind fighting up to now, but that hadn't helped me much when I didn't have sensing to fall back on.
I think we were all conscious of the person missing, but we made do.
"We could get lunch?" I offered, when we were done.
Sasuke shook his head. "I've got gate duty."
"I had a meeting," Kakashi added, lazily.
I made no comment on his use of past tense or the implication that he was only going to go now. It didn't actually cause me any surprise.
So instead I picked up some takoyaki and went to knock on Sakura's door.
"Hi?" I said, holding the tray out in front of me as a peace offering.
"Hi," she said back, stepping out of the way to let me inside. She didn't seem upset, so that was something. On her end it had been nearly two weeks, but the last I had seen of her had been slightly strained.
"How did the thing with Tsunade go, in the end?" I asked.
Her eyes lit up. "She is so amazing," she gushed.
I nodded, empathetically.
"I know, I know," Sakura waved it off. "But no, really. Tsunade-sama is amazing! I thought I was going to die. She wanted to know where I got the information from and stuff." She peeked at me from under her eyelashes.
"So you said me?" I confirmed.
She shrugged, unapologetically. "I couldn't lie, could I?"
Which, I supposed not. Tsunade hadn't said anything to me when we'd reported in, so that was something. Maybe she was just saving it up for later?
"She wasn't really that mad," Sakura went on. "More, I don't know, irritated? She said I shouldn't practice it without proper supervision anymore. And then she made me demonstrate it to her. And I think. Umm. I think…"
"You think?" I prompted.
"I think she wants to train me," Sakura said in a rush. She looked terribly pleased, and no wonder.
"Wow," I said. "Like, permanently?"
"I don't know," she said. "I don't think it's like it'll be like a sensei or anything. But still."
"It's Tsunade," I finished. And yeah, she was probably too busy to directly hands on teach a lot of stuff, but she'd managed to apprentice Sakura in the story, so she could probably make a bit of time here and there. And any teaching from her had to be worth its weight in gold.
"I, um," Sakura said a little more hesitantly. "I'm not supposed to share it with you. When I learn it. That was one of her conditions."
I nodded, a little disappointed but not particularly surprised. "Ninja don't really like sharing techniques all that much." It had dropped on my list of things to learn – yeah, it'd be nice to be able to punch stuff to death and there were no circumstances where being stronger was a bad thing – but straight out taijutsu wasn't exactly my focus and I was being pulled in so many different directions anyway.
And if Sakura learnt it… well. She might not be teaching me, but I had many, many more chances to see her use it than I did Tsunade. If they thought I couldn't work backwards from that, then Sakura hadn't been forth coming about how much information I'd given her in the first place.
"But you did!" Sakura burst out. "You gave it to me. The whole technique is your work. It should be you!"
I blinked, startled. "It's fine," I said awkwardly. "It suits you more than it does me anyway." I shrugged. "It's not a problem. Really."
It wasn't a big deal. Or… it was, and I could see why it was, but I didn't want it to be a big deal. It felt a little like payment for something she didn't know could have been an option. And she'd still made it, gone for the Medic Corps and impressed Tsunade, all on her own without me or Team 7 or any of it.
I cast around for something else to say. "Have you covered burns yet, in class?"
.
.
"You're never home," Shikamaru said.
It was a little too soft to be an accusation, but it felt like one anyway. The lazy relaxed attitude didn't cover the sharpness of his eyes.
"I'm busy," I said, as mildly as possible. "Missions, training… Maybe you've heard of them?"
I held up a bunch of scrolls as evidence.
The fact was – I hadn't been intending on going out again. But I'd been home for about half an hour before my mind had started buzzing with ideas. Things I had to do. Things to work on. There was the barrier seal, and chakra storage seal and the seal to view compressed seals that was suddenly much more important. And that lead to thinking about other seals I'd considered recently, and the magnetic one could probably use a bit of tweaking and, oh, that storage seal that I had brutalised in battle probably deserved to be recreated.
I'd been meaning to take a break (there was a pile of fiction sitting next to my bed that I hadn't touched since… since when? Graduation?) but with all that in my head, how could I just sit still?
"Rest, relaxation, family," Shikamaru shot back. "Maybe you've heard of them?"
"Can't say I have," I said. "I'll look them up later."
I slipped my feet into my shoes and was out the door before he could come up with another rejoinder. There had been nothing about the conversation that was aggressive or antagonistic, yet it still put me off balance. There was still that unspoken something between us that wasn't quite right.
I'd wanted to say something to him, when I'd been talking to Toki in the Land of Birds. But I could barely remember the feeling now. Or how to put it into words.
I get it; it would suck. I've seen what it does to people, losing a twin.
But I still couldn't stop. Because then we'd lose more.
Instead, I set it aside and picked a training ground to practice my sealing.
It was strange to be working with storage scrolls again. They were one of the first things I'd learnt, one of the easiest variations. Practically everyone knew how to make a storage scroll.
This one though… this one I had stripped of all the limiters and safety restrictions and basically everything that made ninja feel safe creating one then rolling it up and sticking it in their pockets.
It had done what I'd needed it to. And it had worked. And it was probably not a bad move to fall back on, if I really had to. But it was something I would have to be really careful with using, otherwise I might find myself minus a hand or two. Or it might destabilise and fail and rip a hole in reality.
Well. Probably not that one. I hoped.
It probably wasn't a great idea to leave holes of questionable depth in Konoha centric training fields, so I booked it out to the place that Kakashi had taken Sasuke, all those months ago during the Chunin Exams. It was a desolated rocky place, with plenty of giant stone pillars shooting up into the air, and somewhere where it was fairly safe to practice jutsu of destructive ability.
Go me.
And I was alone. Completely alone. Not another person within sight – or sensing distance. Probably a lot further than that, even. It made the world feel larger, wider, a little more echoing.
It felt a little like there was weight being lifted from my shoulders.
"Well then," I said to myself, bouncing a little. "Let's get to work."
The landscape didn't really stand a chance.
By the time I had some functioning prototypes that were mostly stable and reasonably unlikely to take my hands off when I used them, the place was littered with giant gouges in the ground and missing more than a few pillars.
It probably wasn't polite to leave huge holes in the ground, so I messed around with an amplification seal to try and use an earth jutsu to close them over – it was well out of the scale of things I could do on my own. My earth jutsu were rarely bigger than me.
That just led down a path of creating a functional seal to do it for me, though it was incredibly specific to the area and needed a specific breakdown of soil types in order to be able to do anything at all. Not exactly something I could pre-prepare and carry around, or make up on the fly.
But not bad, all the same.
It was dark by the time I got home, but there was still a light in the window.
"Tadaima," I said softly.
"Okaeri," Dad returned from the living room, where he was observing a half played game on the shoji board with almost absentminded thoroughness. "You missed dinner."
I shrugged, setting my shoes neatly aside. "I was training. Lost track of time."
"Leftovers are in the fridge." He said, turning his attention on me. It was the same look, the same lazy analysis; patient, like turning a problem over and over in your head before you had enough information to make a move.
"Not hungry," I said, with a shake of my head.
"Want to play?" He gestured at the shogi board.
"It's kinda late," I declined. I really wasn't in the mood for a game anyway.
"Such an important person, always too busy for a game with her poor father," he teased. It was a tease, but it hit home all the same. Because he'd always made time for us. Always.
I huffed a laugh, and came to drop down next to him on the couch. "I missed you," I said, dropping my head down on his shoulder and turning on my best exaggerated sad fawn eyes. "You were gone forever. I counted."
His chest vibrated with a repressed laugh, but all that escaped was a soft puff of air. He dropped his arm over my shoulders and pulled me closer. "It did feel like forever," he agreed.
I thought he might have brought up the things that had happened while he was gone. He had to know about them. But he didn't.
"If you have time in the morning," he said, instead. "There's a new clan jutsu I want to show you."
I made a vague, sleepy sound of assent.
Apparently, when he said 'you' he meant 'you and Shikamaru'. Which was… obvious and not something I would have ever needed clarification on before.
And yet, in the morning, I was still somehow surprised.
We didn't go far. Only out to the back lawn. Dad stayed sitting on the edge of the veranda, a cup of tea steaming gently beside him. It was still early and we were all a bit bleary eyed with sleep.
"This is something I've been working on these last few months," he said. "It's a new jutsu, but I don't think it will be much harder for you to learn than Shadow Stitching."
I perked up. I liked learning new things, especially things that weren't just 'new' to me, but entirely new creations. Even Shikamaru looked intrigued, shaking off his sleepy disinterest.
"What does it do?" I asked.
The corner of his mouth twitched up. "Why don't you tell me?" he asked. He ran through a series of seals - they were not so different from our other jutsu – and reached a hand out towards each of us. I held still as two fingers rested next to the outside of my eye, then curled like claws and dragged across.
Shadows like black smoke curled through the path his fingers had taken, thick and opaque. His chakra hung heavy and warm across my face, like descending twilight, familiar and friendly.
I blinked slowly, feeling them catch and drag on my eyelashes. For all that the shadows were dark, I could see through them. Everything was washed out and grey and strangely flat, but I could see.
"Shadow Sight," Dad said, sitting back. He picked up his tea and held it loosely in his hands, looking prepared to stay there a while.
So what does it do?
I looked around, up and down, stared at my hands and flexed them, scuffed my foot against the ground and leaving an ink mark behind. The low power Flash Seal went off and Dad winced.
Shikamaru had settled his hands into his thinking pose. He too had a thick band of shadow covering his eyes. I couldn't see them, couldn't tell where he was looking or what expression he was making. It was strangely intimidating.
I sighed. "Shadow Sight," I said thoughtfully, letting my impressions settle themselves into words. "The band of shadow filters the incoming light, reducing it to a consistent intensity. Shadows aren't visible, and neither are extremes of light."
That was why everything looked flat and strange. There were no shadows. You never really thought about how common they were, or how you used them to help gauge distance or depth.
"It'll make our jutsu a little more difficult if we can't tell where the shadows are," I continued, frowning slightly. I tapped my fingers against my lip. "But it would make a good night vision jutsu when light levels are low, and protection from flashbangs and the like. It'll probably be a good defence against visual genjutsu-"
Beside me, Shikamaru inhaled a sharp breath.
I stopped and looked at him.
"Go on," he said, shaking his head.
"Right," I said doubtfully. I didn't have much more to say, anyway. "Dad?"
"That's about the size of it," Dad said calmly. "It didn't quite work out how I wanted it to, but it will still be useful in certain situations."
It would make night time excursions a whole lot easier, that was for sure. Torches were well and good, but it did mean people could see you coming, and there were times when secrecy mattered. And we couldn't really use shadow jutsu well at night anyway, so the downsides were negligible. Well, for me. I had other techniques. Shikamaru might find it a bigger hurdle.
Dad dispelled the jutsu and my eyes watered slightly as they readjusted to the light. It wasn't especially bright today, but it was enough.
Then we began the long and laborious process of learning how to do it ourselves.
It wasn't, as he said, all that different or difficult. But there were subtleties to it. Variations and ways that we needed to twist to make it work. And then we had to hold it. This wasn't an attack, to be used and forgotten, it was something we would have to maintain.
"You've both improved," Dad said mildly, after we'd been at it for a while. "Your technique is much better than when I left."
I gave a lazy shrug, still half focused on the jutsu. Shikamaru mirrored me – I knew that without even looking up to see him. Because of course we had; it had been months. It would have been stranger if we hadn't improved.
"There anything else you want to cover?"
I hesitated, but it wasn't something I want to bring up with Shikamaru around. I could just see how well that would go.
I wasn't exactly thrilled to bring it up to dad either, but that was probably slightly more necessary.
Just… not now.
Later. I'd do it later.
I shook my head.
Dad gave no indication that he expected any other response. I didn't fool myself into thinking that he hadn't talked to Kasuga, but he was patient. He probably wouldn't push it right now.
How patient he was, I didn't know.
"Then that's enough for today," he said. "I have to get back to the tower." He stood, groaning, and ambled off with a lazy stride.
Shikamaru groaned too and flopped backwards onto the ground, staring at the sky. "How troublesome."
I nudged him with my foot. "You going to stay there all day?"
He barely moved. "Maybe."
I rolled my eyes and went back inside.
.
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The Hokage's Office wasn't meant to cram so many people in.
There was the Rookie Nine, minus Shikamaru and Shino, Team Gai as well as three more teams of Genin who I vaguely remembered making it to the second exam but didn't actually know.
So yeah, I could guess why we were here, right off the bat.
"You've all been nominated for the Chunin Exams," Tsunade said briskly, confirming it. "It's being held in Hidden Grass. The format will be a little different from the last one you participated in."
The Exams happened every six months and cycled around the villages. Since there were only five major villages that meant that once every three years one of the minor hidden villages had a chance to host it.
It was lucky for us that it had landed on Hidden Grass. We had a non-aggression treaty with them. Well… so did everyone, really. They tried to play all sides and keep all their neighbours happy, because if it did come to war they were in prime position to get trampled all over.
But this would probably be our last invite to an exam until the roster circled back around to Sand or Konoha. I could not see Tsunade sending a team into Hidden Cloud – especially not now.
"Unlike the Konoha exams," she went on. "The entire thing will last for one week. All the guests – including myself and the other Kage – will arrive at the beginning and will be observing you through the entire test, rather than just at the tournament. You will not have preparation time before the one-on-one fights, so I suggest you all start planning now."
Sasuke shifted slightly beside me.
If Tsunade was coming… if she would be there the whole time… then there was really no safer way to take Sasuke out of the village. Even Orochimaru would think twice about that.
So this wouldn't just be the only chance we might get for years, it might be the only chance that Sasuke got. Period.
Well. Okay. We could do this.
"I don't have to tell you to do your best to represent us." Her gaze swept over us. It was compelling. Collectively, we stood a little straighter. "The Chunin Exam is the one place where we can present ourselves to new clients without danger, and show them that we value ideals like honour and courage. It's a place where we can interact with other villages so that, at the end, everyone walks away. This is much more important than you know – it exceeds promotions or even advertisement."
Somehow, I liked Tsunade's speech much more than the Third Hokage's 'this is a replacement for war'.
We were dismissed from the office and trailed out into the corridor where a bunch of Jounin were waiting. Everyone split up and went to their sensei, almost instinctively, but Kakashi-sensei wasn't there.
Asuma motioned us over. "Kakashi put your names forward," he said. "But since we have three partial teams, we're going to be combining them. Shikako will be with us, and Sasuke with Kurenai."
I could see the logic to it. "Ino-Shika-Cho?" I offered, not quite wryly. Ino shrugged a shoulder back at me. It was what it was.
Kiba knocked his fists together. "Hell yeah, we are going to kick ass."
Sasuke smirked at him. "Only because I'm with you."
So this was why Tsunade had recalled so many of her best ninja from the border. Dad and Shizune were going to have to hold the village together while she was away, and the Jounin would be coming with us to represent the village. She was really pulling out all the stops with this 'make an impression' thing.
"We have a week before we leave," Kurenai said smoothly, interrupting the taunting. "So there's a little bit of time for us to make sure that you're functioning properly as a team."
I didn't think that would be much of a problem, really. We had worked together, and we all knew each other reasonably well. Maybe we wouldn't be the well-oiled machine of a permanent team, but we wouldn't be a mess either.
Still, not a bad idea.
"We'll start with a team verses team match tomorrow and go from there," Asuma finished. "So come prepared."
Oh. That should be good. My mouth crooked into a smile. Sasuke smirked back at me.
.
.
"Sensei," I singsonged drawing the word out into all its syllables. "You didn't tell us you'd nominated us for the Exams."
Kakashi-sensei looked up from his book, projecting an air of complete indifference. "Mah, didn't I? Well. You've been nominated for the Chunin Exams."
Beside me Sasuke snorted. He shoved his hands into his pockets. "You aren't coming?" He asked.
Kakashi gave a brief twitch of one shoulder. "I am, actually. Just not as your sensei. I landed the enviable task of standing around looking intimidating."
He slouched even further, out of what must have been sheer contrariness. It wasn't that he looked especially intimidating, but there would be no one there who didn't know who he was. And the reputation was a fearsome thing.
I translated the sentence in my head. "As the Hokage's bodyguard?" I clarified. There were limited numbers of people that would be going to an event like this, and few of them could be described as 'standing around'.
"If she needs it," he said, an amused crinkle forming around his eye. Because, yeah, there was a joke to thinking that Tsunade needed bodyguards.
"As long as you're there to see us be awesome." I nodded, so overly serious that it wasn't anything but a joke, to cement the statement.
"That's the plan." Kakashi-sensei nodded back.
It wasn't that we would be short on Jounin or protection – Tsunade was going to be there – but it was reassuring to know that Kakashi-sensei was still going to be around. And, yeah, okay. There was encouragement to show off for him.
I split the rest of the afternoon with light training and strategizing, and for once, we were all home for dinner.
"This is nice, isn't it?" Mum commented. And it wasn't even passive aggressive or a subtle hint in our directions.
Which probably made it work better than if it had been. I sank just a little lower in my seat.
After dinner was full of quiet conversation, the clatter of dishes getting washed, and shogi games that I lost horribly. All of it comfortably familiar.
I stretched out on the couch and turned a game piece over and over in my hands, fingers smoothing over the sides.
"Little hard to play when you've taken one of the pieces," Dad said, settling himself down beside the board.
"It's not an important one," I said idly, tracing the kanji for 'pawn' without really looking at it. Upstairs, the shower was running and Shikamaru had settled into bed. I probably wasn't going to get a better opportunity than this. "You can play without it."
"They're all important ones," Dad corrected easily, without really sounding like he was arguing. "It's not the same game without them."
I dropped it back on the board, where the last game was still frozen in its final moments. "I lost that game," I said.
"You did," he agreed, eyes sweeping over the layout. "You know why?"
"Yes," I said, and rolled onto my side. I had the half aware feeling that we weren't really talking about the game. Or the pieces. "I want to show you-"
It maybe wasn't the best way to introduce the problem. But, none of the other options that I had come up with were any better, either. At least this way, I didn't have to explain it. Didn't have to put into words 'I am coming apart'.
He looked up, slow and steady to meet my eyes. The lack of speed gave it an implacable weight, like he was the unstoppable force and immovable object all in one. "Show me what?"
I closed my eyes and breathed in. I gathered my chakra, divided it neatly in half so that it would be even not that fumbling, terrified thing I'd done accidentally.
Then I-
(-pulled.)
I breathed in. I sat up on the couch.
(I swelled across the ground, shadow on wood. I didn't want to use too much chakra, didn't want to alarm anyone, but I needed to make it obvious. Needed him to see what I was doing. I formed upwards, entire being flowing into the shape of a hand, solid and black.)
"Show you this," I said. "It's not a clone. Shadow clone. That's a … duplication. Everything you are, repeated again. This is just one of me, but in different places."
Dad didn't react. He very, very carefully did not react. "Okay," he said. "You can undo it now."
(I swirled back, twisting around my own ankles, fading into insubstantiality. Then-)
-it was over.
"How did it happen?" he asked, still calm.
I could have described the fight. Either of them, the one against Yakumo or the one in the Land of Birds. But the heart of the matter was much more simple. "I was scared," I said. "I wanted to go away."
I swallowed, and pulled my knees up to my chest. I hated admitting things like that. Hated it even more when it was true.
"I'm sorry," Dad said, voice heartbreakingly gentle.
That wasn't what I was expecting. I'd expected disappointment. I'd done the things that I'd been told not to – twisted our jutsu until they broke. We had rules against training alone for this reason.
"Nothing you could do about it." I ducked my chin down, didn't look at him.
He moved, slowly and loudly so I saw and heard it, and dropped next to me. An arm wrapped around me. "I know," he said. "That's why I'm sorry." I wondered, suddenly, if the gentleness was for him and not for me.
Maybe it was.
"I'm sorry," I echoed back. "I didn't want-"
Didn't want to hurt anyone with it. But, I couldn't even say I hadn't wanted it.
I had been… not sure, exactly. But confident I could handle it. Willing to take the risk. And it hadn't backfired. The jutsu had still been useful, still done what I'd needed it to do even if I hadn't known that I'd needed it. But it had shaken me, and I was less certain that I had a grip on it, now. Wasn't sure I was as in control as I needed to be.
"It will be okay, dearheart," Dad said into my hair. I curled even closer to him. "We can work through this."
I noticed, though, that he didn't promise we could fix it.