Master Jiraiya is still sulking. After about ten minutes of him whining about us not finding his title "impressive", Naruto managed to get him across the bridge by reminding him of his "research", and then tells me the reason behind him calling Master Jiraiya "Pervy Sage" in the first place.

"Ew!!" I'd exclaimed.

When we reach a post with three signs on it, Naruto struggles to read out the titles. I do, too; the signs' words are worn out by rain and rot.

"A... Atafuku City," Naruto says. "It's ten kilometers from here."

"I think that's Etafuku," I say, pointing at the first character.

"It's Otafuku City," Master Jiraiya corrects us.

"Hey, hey!" Naruto called after him. "Hey, Pervy Sage!"

"I've told you that my name's Jiraiya!" he snipes. "Geez..." And continues walking, ignoring Naruto's pestering—he wants to know the reason he'd chosen Naruto to be his student, and believes it's because he has great talent within him. When Master Jiraiya doesn't speak, Naruto screams and starts running around him in a circle.

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Why did you choose me?!" Naruto demands. Master Jiraiya sighs, and looks down at him.

"The Fourth Hokage was one my student," he finally says. Naruto's lips part. "And you remind me a lot of him. That's the only reason." And continues on again. Naruto's cheeks turn red very quickly. I, myself, am in awe.

"I... remind you of the Fourth Hokage?" Naruto repeats in a whisper, dazed.

"Master Jiraiya!" I exclaim, and run up in front of him. "You taught the Fourth Hokage?! That's amazing!!"

"All right!" Naruto suddenly shouts; I jump a foot off the ground. He runs past us, yelling the same words over and over. "Wait! If I remind you of the Fourth, that means I must be just as talented as him, right?!" He screams in delight. "I'm gonna become Hokage, after all! All right!"

Naruto jumps in the air. And when he lands—

"No! I stepped in dog crap!!"

"The only things that remind me of the Fourth in you are your blond hair and your stubbornness!" Master Jiraiya shouts at him.

"What did you say, you senile old coot?!" Naruto steps toward him and steps in the dog poop. "Again!?!"

I sigh.

-

We arrive at the city's shrine no more than a half an hour later. Naruto fascinates himself with two bells attached to white and green ribbons, and steps back and forth between them to have them ring, saying "Boing, boing, boing," over and over.

"Cut it out," Master Jiraiya calls after about fifty rings. I'm so bored that I ended up counting them as I ate my sandwich—two slices of rye with avocado butter and black bean paste—on the fifth to last step.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu," I still catch him whisper, and he summons three clones of himself, who climb onto each other's back. I huff, turning away from them. He makes it look so effortless! "Hey, Pervy Sage? What kind of student was the Fourth?"

"It wouldn't be an overstatement to say he became strong thanks to my tutelage," Master Jiraiya says. "And since you're going to get the same tutelage, Naruto, you're super lucky."

All four Naruto's stare at the back of his head, grimacing.

"What?" they chorus. Master Jiraiya looks back at them.

"You don't believe me?" he says. "A good teacher teaches a good student. That's common sense."

"Then, then," says the real Naruto, "who taught you, Pervy Sage?"

"Me? I learned from the Third Hokage."

"The Third Hokage?" I repeat, awestruck.

"Yes," says Master Jiraiya. "The Third was still young then."

"The Third?" the four Naruto's repeat. "Young?"

"Believe it or not, we'll grow old someday, too," I say with a laugh, and I finish the rest of the sandwich, wiping my hands on the sides of my pants.

"That's right," Master Jiraiya says. "I was young, too."

"Young?!" they all exclaim, and while holding onto the bells, they fall over, ripping them from their hooks. The clones break the real Naruto's fall, but then he comes tumbling down the stairs toward me, and I have no time to move out of the way.

"Na-ru-to!" I cry upon hitting each step as I'm forced off the stairs and down toward the sidewalk. The ribbons curl tight around my arms, and then, as we keep falling, "How long is this staircase, anyway!?" we are tied together. I finally hit the ground with a thud, Naruto landing right on top of me.

"Whoops," he says. I groan, and Naruto winces. "Your breath stinks, Kari; what did you even eat just now?!"

"How many bowls of ramen did you eat this morning, Naruto?" I spit back. "I'm getting crushed! Master Jiraiya!" I shout, unable to free myself of the ribbons. I roll to the right so Naruto is no longer squishing the life out of me, and so it's vice versa. He cries out, and tries to roll back the other way. But since I'm higher up on the path, because it slants, I push us a little too hard, and we roll down toward the trees. My back hits the trunk, and I groan again. "Master... Jiraiya..."

"You deserve it!" he calls.

"I don't deserve this!" I argue.

"Since Kakashi's your Sensei, you guys did that bell training exercise, right?" Master Jiraiya asks.

"Yeah, we did," Naruto answers. "I was the one who was tied to a log. That sucked."

"That, you deserved, too," I say, "for trying to eat our lunches!"

"Kakashi-sensei said we shouldn't have eaten anything, and I didn't, so I was starving, believe it!" Naruto huffs.

"Oh?" Master Jiraiya says. "You, too?"

"Huh? Too?" Naruto repeats. "What do you mean "too"?"

"Ah, forget it," he says. "Both of you, get up and put that back."

"Yeah, Naruto, put it back," I say mockingly, still bitter and sore.

"I... I can't even move!" he shouts, and starts squirming again.

"How about you stop moving, reach into my pocket, and grab a kunai? I can't reach it, myself."

"Okay." Naruto opens the pouch, pulls one out, and I instruct him to cut us free at the very end so that not a whole lot of the ribbon is missing. It cuts, and we fall away from each other and sigh. Naruto takes the bells and ribbons and runs back up the steps to hang them back up. As I trudge after him, I hear Master Jiraiya chuckle under his breath. "What's so funny?" Naruto asks him.

"Just that a good teacher raises a good student!" he replies, and messes up Naruto's hair.

"I don't get it," Naruto says, pushing his blond spikes back into place.

"We're leaving now," Master Jiraiya says. "Did you fix them?" I look back at the bells and laugh; they're crooked!

"More or less," I murmur. Naruto rings each bell one last time, and presses his hands together before we set off toward the town.

-

"What a loud city!" I shrink out of the way to avoid being run over by a large cabbage cart. "It's so busy, and noisy. There's so many vendors and street performers, too, and—wait, why isn't that guy wearing any pa—"

I halt in the middle of the road, my words lost to the pain that ripples up my spine. The truth is, I'd injured my back during the mess of the Chūnin Exams. While most of my other wounds were tended to and mended, my back just kept aching... In hindsight, I should've stayed home, but... I wanted to come along.

The moment I recover, the eyes I'd felt on my back move away, and I sigh. My sneaking suspicion now is that Master Jiraiya already knew I'd still been injured, and that when Naruto had us rolling down the hill, it was aggravated. I... might've limped a bit on the way here, so that would help, too.

Before I knew it, we'd been steered to a lodging. "We're going to stay here today," Master Jiraiya announces.

"What?" Naruto says. "I can still walk." I don't comment on my own situation. I'd keep moving either way.

"A student must follow his teacher's orders," the tall man tells him.

"I just wanna learn the new technique already!"

"And that's what makes you my student!" Master Jiraiya sighs, moving inside. "If you absolutely need an answer, take a look at your friend."

"Huh?" I do my best to straighten up, knowing that the moment we'd stopped walking, I'd taken on the likeness of a shrimp, but end up hurting myself worse. "K-Kari?"

"I... I wouldn't mind a rest," I admit, trembling a little when the pain settles again.

"Did... did I do that?" he asks.

"You didn't help it," I grumble, "but no. This was... from before." I don't mention it was from when Gaara had me pinned against the tree.

"S-Sorry! I didn't mean to—""I know!" I assure him. "I know. But would it be alright if I rested today?"

"Yeah, of course!" As we move to enter the building, a pretty lady wearing an extremely short dress stops in front of it, looking in the other direction, but somehow it's enough for my companions—their squealing has become so obnoxious that I cover my ears; I groan loudly.

"Ha, ha, ha, Naruto!" Master Jiraiya exclaims. "Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!!"

He gives us our room key. Naruto blinks at it.

"Go to the room and rest, Kari; Naruto, mold some chakra, train, and go to sleep, okay?"

"Oh, I suppose you're trying to say it's time for the grownups to play now, is that what I'm hearing, ya big perv?!" Naruto screams at him.

Swiping the key from his hands, I start trudging deeper into the lodging.

"I'm really starting to regret coming along."

-

"What! Only two beds?!" I throw my bag to the floor. "Not only is he a great, big, super pervert, he's a cheapskate, too." I kneel in front of my bag and fish through it for my money pouch.

"Whenever I'm with Pervy Sage, I'm always shafted," Naruto grumbles, and falls on the bed closest to the window. "Might as well get used to it now." Legs crossed and fingers pressed together, he starts trying to infuse his chakra, but instead starts producing Shadow Clones... however that's possible.

"Uh... I'm gonna go downstairs and see if they have another room available," I tell him, finally finding the pouch.

"Eh? We've shared a bed before." My cheeks heat up—with rage.

"I wish there was a way you could see yourself when you sleep, Naruto; it's almost cruel to have to share a bed with you! I'm not looking for a concussion on top of everything else, no thank you!"

He huffs, opening one eye when he pouts at me. "Fine, fine." Sighing, I turn around to the door, but before I can grab the handle, there's a knock at the door. Naruto's clones disappear, and he groans. "Don't tell me she dumped you already?!"

Fight or flight. To keep the honesty streak going, I don't have the energy for either of these things. So, the often-forgotten "freeze" comes into play. I can't move. I can't speak. I can barely breathe, just enough to keep me conscious. I can't stop Naruto from opening the door, I can't tell him to run out the window in the opposite direction. Because the person, or people, on the opposite side of this door is not Master Jiraiya. And they aren't good people.

"Y-You're..."

But one of them is familiar. Familiar, in a very recent way. Familiar, as in, I'd only just seen his photo for the first time the day Sasuke brought me into his former home to read my manifesto.

"... I-Itachi," I rasp.

The other is a tall, blue man... that resembles a shark more than he does a man. I should be fascinated by it, but I am frightened.

"Oh? This one knows you, Itachi," the shark-man chuckles. His white eyes swivel away from me, and I take in my first breath. "And this one... It's hard to believe a child like him carries the Nine-Tailed Fox."

H-How do they know about the Nine-Tailed Fox?! my thoughts exclaim. Run! Try and run! I'm supplied with unanswered questions and useless suggestions.

"Naruto," Itachi says. "You're coming with us." His gaze falls onto me. It's harsh from the red of his activated Sharingan, but... somehow, it doesn't scare me nearly as much as I expected it to... even after what I'd recently learned. "... Kari. You, too."

My lip quivers when a pain strikes me through my head. I can't bring myself to let me black out now, so I see it through open eyes. It burns them, the memory hot like boiling water—I see Itachi; younger, smiling. At me? A head pat. A... spoon. A farewell, all to a girl with dark hair. I blink once, and it disappears, the pain along with it.

That was his memory, but that girl... was...

"Why don't we all take a walk?" he says to us. My legs are stiff, and my back aches. Not to mention, their chakra is... stifling. For that reason alone, I just know... We could never hope to fight them and win.

I'm glad Naruto realizes the same thing. I'd feared he might and try fighting them; with that Sharingan of his, he would know every move we were about to make.

Itachi steps aside. Against better judgment but with zero choice, we walk into the hallway. My hand feels empty; I'd dropped my money pouch.

"Hey, Itachi," the shark-man says. "It'll be a real pain in the neck if these kids make a run for it. Maybe I ought to... chop off a leg or two. Just in case." He reaches for the sword hoisted on his back, and my breath hitches. I look to Itachi, instinctively wanting to beg for him to tell him "no", at the very least!

"P... pl..." But I still can't speak. I can't do a thing!

The shark-man chuckles. "Right." He takes a step forward; somehow, he seems twice as big. He goes to unsheathe it, when Itachi finally, finally speaks.

But it's not the words I'd expected.

"It's been a long time," he says. "Sasuke."

My vision fogs over. I can't see him past Itachi and the shark-man, but I can feel his chakra. Why can I feel his chakra? This is the worst possible situation to be able to feel his chakra!

"Itachi... Uchiha," he spits.

"Well!" the shark-man says, sounding pleased, "the Sharingan! And he looks an awful lot like you, Itachi. Who is this kid?"

"He's my younger brother," Itachi answers.

"That's strange, because, the way I heard it, the whole Uchiha Clan was wiped out. By you."

"Itachi Uchiha," Sasuke repeats, sounding frightfully resolute. "I hope you're ready to die!"

I... I'll help you, then. I'll help you get your revenge.

Are you going to stop me, then? Your hands might be a little full if you try.

I just... I can't bear to see you do something so scary all on your own!

"It's just as you said, brother. I've fostered my hatred for you, all this time!" In his hand, Sasuke gathers his chakra, until it forms into an ear-splitting ball of electricity. "I've lived my life for one single purpose—to see you die! It ends here! You're dead!"

On his way toward us, the Chidori scores along the wall, tearing up the paint and drywall and everything else behind it. Itachi reaches out and grabs Sasuke's wrist, and deters his Chidori toward our room. A huge hole rips through it, and I watch my bag further in fall to the first floor. My money bag, only a few feet away and closer to us, begins to roll, and my body jerks to dive for it. A loss of over two hundred thousand Ryō? Not happening!

The Chidori in Sasuke's hand fades away with Itachi squeezing his forearm. With a single movement of the same hand, a loud crack spirals down the hall, and a cry escapes from me.

"Sasuke!!" Because that's all I can do. My body isn't strong enough to channel chakra into a physical attack, nor a Ninjutsu that might deter them for a moment. Naruto makes a hand sign, and the same orange chakra I'd already seen several times before now appears. The shark-man turns back to him.

"All right, that's it!" Naruto shouts. "Ninja Art: Summoning—""You're too slow!"

The shark-man pulls the sword off his back and swings it through Naruto's visible chakra. I watch, shocked, as it fades away, pulled toward the sword like a sponge.

"C'mon, c'mon! What the heck is going on?!"

"It's his sword," I call out. "It just ate your chakra!"

"Oh, you saw that, did you?" I grit my teeth at the walking sturgeon. "My blade, Samehada, cuts through chakra and devours it." I eye the sword again, to find it moving like... like it was really chewing on something. "We don't need the hassle of these kids whipping out their Jutsu; forget their legs," I back away when he points his sword at me, "I ought to start with their arms!"

Instinctively I rise, to run, to reach for a kunai, to charge at him —to do something that wouldn't result in a scary sword piercing my same-sized body. I expect the pain of it when my eyes shut in my effort to act, but the only thing that comes is an explosion, a rush of chakra and the appearance of another's chakra, and when I open my eyes, I discover that a large toad has stopped the shark-man's attack on me, and that Master Jiraiya has returned.

"You two don't know me at all, do you?" he says; my relief is evident in my shaky breaths. "Should've done your homework!" Slung over his arm, I spot the woman from earlier that he'd followed after, unconscious. "Jiraiya the Toad Sage falls victim to no woman's charm! Rare beauties drop for me, like blossoms in a storm! It isn't in my nature to be duped by the wiles of women! When you reach the stature I have, the ladies kneel and worship... at your awesomeness."

The hall grows silent besides Sasuke's struggling and pained moans. He probably didn't even hear what Master Jiraiya said... I kinda wish I didn't hear it, either.

Updated June 16th, 2024 | 3,097 words