Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Academy Arc: Four
Disclaimer: Tavina does not own Naruto. Tavina is writing free fanfiction on the Internet.
I wake to the darkness on the night October 9th to Kaa-san throwing on clothes and shoving me, Kiba and the Triplets out the door towards the mountain. "What's happening?" I knew what was supposed to happen on the tenth, but this was too early.
Naruto isn't supposed to be born until tomorrow night, right?
"There's a village wide alarm." Kaa-san brushes my bangs out of my face. "Take care of Kiba, Little Nose." Am I starting to forget things that I remember from canon? I cannot possibly have affected this.
I clutch a wailing Kiba, and take one last look at Kaa-san before I race out the door. The wave of negative energy brings me to my knees and Kiba goes silent. For a sickening moment I think he's dead, but I look down, and his eyes are still open, and he's gasping for air. He needs me to take him to the mountain. The emergency safe shelters were built into the mountain, but as I stare down the street I nearly lose hope.
Can I even walk that far? The Kyuubi's chakra bleeds red in the distance, but even from half a city away I feel it's malevolent energy, like I'm breathing air so thick it might be molasses. All around me, people screamed and collapsed where they stood.
Ichi nudges my elbow. "Please?"
I look at the Triplets, and then back at Kiba. I stagger to my feet. You promised your brother you'd protect him. He needs you now, Sprout. The whispering in my head had taken on Tou-san's voice, and I square my shoulders. "Follow me."
Then I put one foot in front of the other. Kaa-san had put her trust in me, and I couldn't just collapse and leave us vulnerable. Kiba didn't have anyone else.
Four blocks down I hear a scream. "Otou-san!" "Okaa-san!" I turn down a side alley and nearly run smack into Uchiha Izumi. I glimpse Itachi behind her, but I don't have time to think of him.
"Are you insane?" I whisper as I grab her sleeve and pull her along with me. "You'll be killed if you don't get to safety inside the mountain." Not half a minute later the street behind us explodes as a large wave chakra decimates the buildings.
Ichi prods Itachi who wasn't moving fast enough. "Stop being dumb."
We stagger together out into the street. All around us, Uchiha clansmen and women were directing civilians towards the mountain and shelter.
Izumi leans on San when I let her go. "You shouldn't let go of him. He'll make sure you're fine."
San barks at me once. "Of course I will."
I summon a smile for him. "I know."
She looks at me, scared, confused, and afraid, and I remember that she is only five years old, a child still.
"You guys should be okay going to the shelter." Itachi makes to break away from our group.
I lock his wrist in an iron grip. "You're coming with us." What if he goes and dies? Only when he turns around to look at me to I see that he has Sasuke in a sling. "You have to look after your brother and yourself right now, there's no time to look for your cousins or your family or anyone else." I drag him along with me as we slide into the steady stream of young and elderly civilians. "There's no way for you to help with any of this."
He pulls his sleeve from my grip, but doesn't run off. "Why?"
I don't know what he's talking about and there's no time to question any of it. We stagger into the shelter of the mountain and make ourselves small in the back of one of the dugouts.
Outside the Kyuubi roars and I feel my ears pop. Beside me, Izumi had cried herself out and is now sleeping with her arms wrapped tightly around San's neck. He bears it with good grace, and I ache to know if her parents are alright, if she had seen them die, but I can do nothing for her or whatever happens to her family.
I can only look to the one part of mine that I have with me. I can't see Cousin Gaku or Cousin Ashi anywhere, and I had to conclude that they must be outside fighting or helping with the evacuation. I refuse to believe that they're dead. Kaa-san is certainly fighting, Aunt Kosshi is nowhere to be found.
There is only me and Kiba and he still refused to make any noise whatsoever.
I look over at Itachi and Sasuke. "What day is it?"
Itachi yawns. "It's nearly the eleventh I think."
Nearly the eleventh? No...It was the tenth of October? Then I didn't forget Naruto's birthday, I had lost track of the date.
"Is your brother alright?" I ask, and Itachi blinks at me.
"Why wouldn't he be?"
A twisted panic curls in my stomach. "He's not crying." I gesture around the large cavern. "All the other babies are crying, but your brother and Kiba aren't."
Itachi blinks again. "Sasuke is normally very quiet."
I look down at Kiba, who still seems to be gasping for air, and feel a sob build in the back of my throat. "But Kiba isn't normally quiet at all."
Itachi moves closer so that we're pressed together. "Is he a cousin of yours?"
My head snaps up so fast my teeth click together in my skull, and my eyes narrow as my lips draw back in a snarl. "He's my brother." I all but bare my fangless teeth at him in an effort to make him move away.
Itachi's eyes widen, and he looks down at Kiba with a new light in his eyes almost like understanding. "Oh. I didn't know that was why you didn't come to the Academy for a while."
My heart rate shifts back to normal, and I feel a small twinge of remorse. "I'm sorry for snapping at you."
He looks down. "That's okay."
It's unclear how long we sat in the shelter before Itachi spoke again. "Why did you not let me leave?"
I look at him with tired eyes. "I couldn't let you get buried under a mountain of rubble or stepped on. You could've died out there."
He looks away. "But you don't like me." Does he really think that? Honestly if I didn't like him I wouldn't try to help him? But of course he did, I wasn't nice to him in the past.
"But you're still my classmate." I say, too ashamed to meet his eyes. "I wouldn't have just left you out there to die."
"Oh." An uncomfortable silence lapses between us, even as the outside world shook.
"Who were you looking for?" I ask. It is a silly question, but I didn't know what else to ask.
"My parents." He says quietly. "I'm sure they're out there directing civilians to take cover." Oh that's right, his father works in the police force.
"Your Otou-san works for the Military Police, right?" I ask, trying desperately not to think about my own father.
Itachi nods. "He's the Captain of the Konoha Military Police Force. It makes him very busy." And Uchiha-san is outside trying to save the people of Konoha. It is a thought both new and unexpected. At one point, the Uchiha clan did care about Konoha. They care very much right now. So what changed? I couldn't remember why they started the coup in just under another decade, and Itachi doesn't give me enough time to think about it. "What does your Otou-san do?"
The words are knives ripping my insides to shreds, but I'm not angry, because he's not asking this to hurt me on purpose, and it's my own fault that I asked about his own father.
I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. "He's dead, Uchiha-kun." I try not to cry as I continue. It is hard, but I manage somehow, to keep the sob from my voice. "He worked in RnD." Tou-san's all past tense now except for his death, that's very present tense.
"I'm sorry." And he is so genuinely sorry. "I saw him pick you up from academy. He loved you a lot."
I laugh quietly at him. "You didn't know." But then I smile, because his words are true. "He still loves me a lot." His death didn't stop that. I knew it didn't. Another present tense besides death. Love.
From beyond the doorway of the shelter, the sun weeps tears of blood as it rises over Konohagakure.
Kaa-san stumbles into the shelter an hour later. "Hana?" "Hana?" I jerk awake and nearly bang my head against Itachi's. Somehow, I'd drifted to sleep with my head on his shoulder. Thankfully, he didn't seem to have noticed.
"Kaa-san!" I raise a hand to wave at her. "We're over here."
Her eyes light up as she sees us and she all but races over to scoop us up in her arms. "Thank heavens, you're both safe." It's only then that she spies the still slumbering Itachi who is curled up beside me, and Izumi with her arms wrapped around San. "Have their parents arrived yet?" She asks, even as she takes Kiba from my tired arms.
I shake my head. "I don't think so."
Kaa-san sets a hand on Itachi's shoulder and shakes him. "It's time to wake up, kid. Your parents'll be here soon."
He blinks up at her, confused and shaken. "Where are they?"
Kaa san helps him up and hands Kiba back to me. "Look after your brother for a moment, Little Nose." Kaa-san walks over and disentangles Izumi from San, and straightens. Izumi rubs her eyes as Itachi and I look on with mild disbelief. "Well, come along, you two. I'll notify the Uchiha clan where you are, but our house isn't flattened, despite some damage, and the Uchiha compound is."
"It's okay, Inuzuka-san." Itachi shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. "I have to find my parents."
Kaa-san looks back at him, and offers him a hand to hold. He stares at it as though it is a foreign object that he'd never seen before. "I know Fugaku's still alive, so you can thank god for small mercies. Not sure where your Okaa-san is." Kaa-san turns to Izumi. "I'm not sure where your family is either, but it's best that you two sleep somewhere other than the floor." They still look resistant, so Kaa-san puts a hand on both of their shoulders "I wasn't asking," and all but pushes them towards the door. "Come along, Little Nose." She tosses the words over her shoulder and I follow after them, the Triplets tagging behind.
Itachi's mother bursts through our front door later that morning. "You have them? They're safe?"
Kaa-san pins her with an unimpressed glare. "You think I'd hurt them?" She does step aside to let Uchiha Mikoto pass though. "They were tired and scared when I found them, but yes, all three of them are safe."
Mikoto-san looks contrite. "I'm sorry. I wasn't home last night, and Fugaku didn't see Itachi-kun or Sasuke-kun last night or this morning, so we feared the worst until we got your message." She rambled, clearly nervous as she wrung her hands. "You see, we didn't expect anyone to take them in this morning-"
"Where are they going to sleep after they go home with you?" Mikoto-san pauses and stares at Kaa-san with her mouth hanging open. For an uncharitable moment, I think she looks like a fish. "The Uchiha district's in center city isn't it? That's flattened to a pancake by now."
Mikoto-san looks an ever increasing amount of uncomfortable. "I wouldn't like to impose..."
I edge out from behind Kaa-san and give her my biggest smile. "They can stay here until you figure something out, Uchiha-san. They're my classmates."
She leans down to look at me. "You're Inuzuka Hana-chan?" How does she know my name? I nod. "I'm not sure if I can intrude so much on-"
"Oh for Kami's sake." Kaa-san throws up her hands and guides Mikoto-san towards the door. "They'll be safe here, you're not intruding on anything, and you're busy trying to rebuild the district. Just let it be."
Mikoto-san is still giving backward glances as she walks towards the door, but doesn't say anything more as she leaves.
I wake to hear one of the clansmen in discussion with another one of clansmen and Kaa-san. "The Sandaime has called a meeting of the clan heads. It's imperative that someone is there to look to our interests, Tsume."
I hear Kaa-san snort dismissively at this. "None of you even bothered to come to my wedding besides Nee-chan, and none of you bothered to ever care about me or my children afterwards. Why should I bother dealing with the lot of you now?"
There's a silence, and then another voice speaks up more hesitantly this time. "We were in the wrong, Tsume-san, but you're the only one who can go tonight. Kosshi-sama...and Ashi's in the hospital and no one has found Gaku yet." Why? What's wrong with Obaa-san?
"Have someone else do it." Kaa-san's footsteps stopped outside my door.
"Please, Tsume-san. It's what Kosshi-sama would have wanted." The other clan members seemed to be getting desperate now.
"Don't you dare presume to use my sister's desires against me, Daisuke. You won't like the consequences. Now get out of this house." Kaa-san opens the door to my room, and smiles ruefully. "You heard everything didn't you, Little Nose?" She comes over and hugs me tight. "Kosshi was found this morning in the rubble." Her voice is thick with feeling, and I didn't know what to think or believe. Obaa-san's gone? While she'd never liked me, she'd also never been cruel. "We were never close after I married your Otou-san, but she was still my sister. We were supposed to make up soon."
I wrap my arms around her. Inuzuka Tsume was twenty three years old, and in the span of a year she'd lost a sister and a husband and given birth to a second child.
It is a miracle that she's still standing after what would have broken so many others.
"I think you should go." I whisper. "Not for them. They don't care about us, but because we're still a family."
Kaa-san nods. "It figures you'd be the voice of reason." She gets up, and ruffles my hair. "Thanks for talking to me about everything, Little Nose. It means a lot to me."
I smile back as brightly as I am able. "I think we'll be okay."
Kaa-san laughs. "We sure will."
A.N. Hello lovely people!
And holy smokes, 372259, thanks for reviewing every single chapter yesterday. You really made my day, hence lovely long chapter with lot's and lot's of Itachi-Hana interactions with some clan politics on the side.
I am going to say that this is going to be a very long series, as evidenced by the startling number of chapters so far, and that the romance is well, actually, in planning. I have a few ideas about how it's going to go, and with whom she's going to be shipped with, as of yet he hasn't shown up as a character, but none of it is going to happen until she sees herself through on Mission Protect Kiba until he's a grown up.
That being said, who she gets shipped with may in fact change.
Also, I'm planning to upload the side stories/snippets in a collection called Ashen, updating either bi-monthly or monthly, It should be going up this weekend so stay tuned for that.
Thanks for everyone who favorited, and followed since I last updated. You all are great.
~Tavina
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