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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 academic ranking, 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."
"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?"