Naruto 1. Prologue: Safe Haven

Disclaimer: Foolish mortal that I am, I do not own Naruto. But I own Kakashi. Shhhhh.

**Higurashi House**

**Prologue: Safe Haven**

In ancient times, there were many clans in the shinobi world. Most have since fallen into decline. A few have died out in their entirety. Some have only a few members remaining. Two of these latter were once great and powerful. The Uchiha clan of the Land of Fire. And the Higurashi clan of the Land of Fire.

They were rivals; bitter enemies. The Uchiha possessed a bloodline trait that allowed them to copy any jutsu, along with powers of hypnosis and manipulation of the mind. They were feared, but they were also respected. The Higurashi possessed a bloodline trait that allowed them to repel any attack – jutsu or otherwise. This came with a rather large store of chakra and an impressive propensity for the healing arts.

Their rivalry was mostly political, for a fight between any members of each clan would have been pointless. Neither relied on their own jutsus. The Higurashi employed a defensive form of fighting. The Uchiha did also, if to a slightly lesser degree.

After many decades of this enmity, the Second Hokage passed a law that prevented any interaction between the two clans. No fights, which would be mutually destructive and highly dangerous to any bystanders. No marriages, either, for a child with the ability to copy jutsus and to repel them would have been just as dangerous, perhaps even more so.

The Higurashi clan lived in relative obscurity.

They did not go out of their way to interact with others, but stayed in their compound about 5 miles from Konoha. They married mostly within the clan, and by this inbreeding they gradually began to die out. At the time of the Fourth Hokage, they had declined to three small families. These three, in an effort to preserve their clan, had sent 5 children to Konoha, to train as shinobi like the Higurashi had not done in over a century.

The five children were to become highly ranked ninja, and were then to marry other highly ranked ninja and thus perpetuate the clan. The four boys and the one girl lived in Konoha for years, training, working, and moving up in the ranks.

In the meantime, the three remaining families worked at the mansion that was all that was left of the great Higurashi Houses. These Houses were something of a legend. It was said that any traveler – shinobi or otherwise – could find safe haven in these house, one in each of the principal territories. The Higurashi asked no questions and gave no answers. Missing nin and ANBU often found themselves sharing room and food, and having their wounds treated equally.

No arrests were allowed on the premises of these Houses. No fights, no arguments, no assassinations, nothing. The Higurashi backed up their rules with their powerful kekai genkai and their immense chakra.

During the time of the Fourth Hokage, when the last five children of the Higurashi clan were sent to Konoha to train, there was only on of these remaining. Set by the road in the Land of Fire, it declined so much that very few travelers even knew of its existence.

It went out of business entirely when the Nine Tail Fox attacked Konoha.

The five children were among the casualties that day – although the body of the girl was never found – and the rest of the clan mysteriously died a few years after, when the massacre of the Uchiha clan took place.

Some laughed at the irony – the bitter enemies laid low within the same week, and, it was suspected, by the same person. Uchiha Itachi wiped out his own clan, and easily dispatched the paltry remains of their hereditary rivals.

The House stood for 6 years from that point, alone and dying, and it was rumored that the ghosts of the slain children walked its halls and lit its lamps from time to time. But no one bothered with the rumors. After all, it was just a house where anyone could stay. If they could find it.

* * *

The woman bent low in the swiftly falling rain and tore up a shoot from the ground. She examined it carefully, then placed it in the wide basket on her arm. She hummed softly, a lullaby that hung in the moist air like fog. Suddenly, her head jerked up, her eyes narrowed, and she took off her wide-brimmed hat and cupped a hand about her ear.

Basket and hat fell to the ground unattended as she leapt to the treetops and ran to look down upon three figures in a clearing.

Two boys slumped against a tree, breathing heavily. The blonde one was covered in faint scratches that were healing as she watched, and the black-haired boy's right arm dangled limply by his side. They supported between them an unconscious pink-haired girl, whose head was bandaged. Rivulets of blood dripped from it, mingling with the rain to bathe her in its heat.

The blonde turned blue eyes to meet the red ones of his companion, and said in a voice filled with a despondency that took the other by surprise, "She isn't going to make it, is she, Sasuke?"

The raven head turned almost imperceptibly, and Sasuke whispered, "We have to keep moving, Naruto."

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "Answer my question, you bastard!"

"Shut up and walk, dobe."

"Walk where? Konoha's not next door!"

Sasuke whipped his head around, spraying Naruto with droplets of water. "We just have to keep moving. They'll be following soon, if they aren't already."

Naruto took a step forward and tripped over the girl's outstretched foot. He fell face first in the mud, leaving Sasuke to clutch their burden with his one good arm. Blue eyes glared into red, and Naruto began to rant.

"So, they're following. We already killed three of them! What about Kakashi-sensei, hmm? What about him? What about us, Sasuke! We can't keep going like this! Sakura needs medical attention, and we can't give it to her! Kakashi-sensei could, but, oh no, we have to keep running so that he can't find us and stop her from dying!"

Sasuke gently lowered Sakura's body to the ground, and sat beside Naruto. "So, we killed three of them. But my arm is broken and Sakura is half dead and you…well…you're just a freak. And it's more likely that the other shinobi will find us than that Kakashi-sensei will."

The boys continued to argue as the rain continued to fall.

Sakura's face became more and more pale, and when she reached out and tugged weakly at Naruto's jacket he nearly leaped into Sasuke's arms.

She smiled weakly as the two bent over her, concern written plainly on Naruto's face and just a little visible in Sasuke's impassive mien. She opened her lips to speak but Naruto laid a grubby finger over them, silencing her. "You're going to be okay, Sakura-chan. We'll take care of you, we promise."

Sasuke nodded slightly, and a small smile graced Sakura's features.

"You're a horrible liar," she whispered before sinking once more into unconscious oblivion.

"She's dead!" Naruto screamed, "I told you she'd die, you heartless bastard!"

Sasuke pointed to the shallow rise and fall of Sakura's chest and muttered, "She isn't dead, dobe. Are you that blind?"

They launched into yet another argument, and this was when the woman in the tree decided that she'd had enough. She alighted on the ground to be met with several Naruto's holding kunai.

"Shadow clones, I see. Very well done for such a young shinobi. May I be of any assistance?" Seeing the wary looks on the faces of the two real genin, who has arranged themselves in defensive postures in front of Sakura's body, she let out a grim laugh.

"Very well then. I can be of assistance, and I will be. Step aside and allow someone who knows what they're doing to treat this poor girl."

Purple lights flashed in the clearing as the multiple Naruto's threw their weapons and were almost simultaneously punctured by their own kunai. They disappeared into clouds of smoke and the woman advanced, looking decidedly ticked off.

"I'm a Leaf kunoichi, " she announced, "and I honestly do not want to see any of you die. There are pursuers in these woods, so you'd all better get a move on and come with me. Your sensei can find you later – for now you've got to move or be moved – you're choice. I can easily knock the both of you out and carry all three of you to safety, but I'd rather not. It's your choice."

She pushed sopping brown curls from her eyes and waited, hands on hips, for their response.

* * *

A/N: After re-writing three re-writes of this chapter (shut UP! I keep losing them! No seriously – I have too many computers that I store my files on. --;), I have finally decided to repost. I know, I know, I said that it'd be up by the end of January, but the end of February ain't half bad, now, is it? Do please tell me what you think…it's a bit different from the original, but not much. The next chapter should be updated and up soon enough, so…read on! 


	2. Chapter 1: The Storm

Disclaimer: Not mine. –cries- It belongs to a genius, which is obviously not me.

**Higurashi House**

**Chapter One: The Storm**

Kakashi dispatched the last of his attackers, muttering a curse as he plunged his reddened kunai through the missing-nin's heart. He growled at the sky, wiping the knife off on his pants and shoving it roughly into his weapon pouch.

"Damn the rain," he cursed.

Kakashi hated rain. He hated it with a passion that burned with the heat of a thousand suns. _There I go again,_ he thought darkly, _thinking about the damn sun. _Gods, but he hated rain. He shook droplets from his silver hair and felt out for the chakra of his industrious little genin, who, he hoped, were building a nice fire right about now.

He quested out further and further, probing the emptiness with his mind and feeling with his chakra. He became concerned when he couldn't find them. _I must have gone a lot further than I thought, _he mused, stretching his chakra to feel father.

Finally, he found it. The faintness of Sasuke's controlled chakra and the recklessness of Naruto's. But he couldn't feel Sakura. _She does have less chakra then the boys do, _he reminded himself, but somehow it just didn't seem right.

Unless his sense of direction had failed him completely, he was relatively close to where he had left his genin setting up camp for the night. But they felt quite far away, which explained Sakura's non-presence, but didn't really make sense. What was more, he realized with a start, they were moving farther away, and suddenly there was a drastic ebb in Naruto's chakra and then his distinctive chakra pulse was multiplied by six.

Shadow clones.

Kakashi swore vehemently at the trap that he had been nicely led into, and took off running towards the campsite.

When he got there, a battlefield met his eyes.

His team had obviously been attacked while he was off fighting with the chuunin who has accosted him. He muttered angrily under his breath, cursing the gods for the rain as he set about trying to identify what had happened. He started by finding Sakura's footprints. They were smaller and shallower than the rest on the field, and therefore easiest to distinguish. He found the oldest ones and began to lay out her actions in his mind, observing the telltale signs in the small clearing.

She had started with the fire, coaxing it into a warm glow. He closed his eyes and pictured the events that the prints in the clearing told him of her actions.

"_Stop fighting, you two!" Sakura grumbled as she stirred her little fire, breathing on the flame to give it life. She turned to look at the boys, only to find herself face to face with a kunai, or at least a weapon of some sort. Her blood fell on the ground from a wound to her face, and then she bounded backwards, away from her opponent. At this point, she sent senbo flying across the clearing. She thrust forward an illusion _(Kakashi could feel the faint remnants of her outpouring of chakra. Some form of genjutsu, probably meant to blind her opponent.)_, and then stepped forward and thrust with a kunai knife. _

_Her opponent's blood dripped to the ground as Sakura bound away, only to bounce off the chest of the attacker. He pushed her aside, and she fell to the ground, striking her head on a rock. Her blood pooled around it as she lay there for some time. The shinobi walked slowly to her prone form and took out a shuriken, but it was knocked from his hand. It lay on the ground, and so did he; unmoving and dead. Sakura rose and walked to another fight, where she used a medical jutsu to cleanly sever the arm of a kunoichi. It fell to the ground as Sakura's blood poured from her head. Her body crumpled there, then, only to be picked up and thrown to Naruto, who placed her gently on the ground and resumed his own fight._

Kakashi opened his eyes and swore quietly. He walked around the site again, searching for more evidence, this time for Naruto. He sat next to the oldest indentation of the kitsune's feet and closed his eyes again.

_"Sasuke, you bastard!" Naruto yelled, before being silenced by a movement in the corner of his eye. Sakura said something that he couldn't hear, and then she turned to be cut by a sudden enemy. Naruto stepped forward to help her, but was confronted with his own opponent. Immediately, as was his custom, he created shadow clones, and then they attacked._

_Within a minute, they were all gone, and he had been knocked into a tree. He pushed off of it, his feet leaving imprints in the bark. He proceeded to get into a fierce taijutsu battle with his attacker, who he managed to push up against a tree. Bits of the shinobi's clothes were stuck to the bark with senbo that Sakura threw from across the clearing, allowing Naruto to dispatch the man easily. The body slumped at the base of the tree, and Naruto turned to fight another man, who he began to have a clone war with. The two sent out duplicates of themselves every which way, and at one point there were 7 sets of battles between the same two people._

_The originals held back, though, and at one point Naruto broke away from his opponent long enough to catch Sakura and lower her to the ground. He got back into the fight with gusto, and his second attacker's body was draped limply over the limb of a great oak. Naruto went then to meet Sasuke at Sakura's body, and the two picked her up and bounded off into the trees._

Kakashi's visible eye snapped open, and he paced the clearing one last time, getting a feel for Sasuke's place in the events of the previous hour. His details were a bit sketchy, and he put some in that were based purely on his knowledge of his students, but he was confident that he had a fairly accurate picture. He touched the fire-scarred trees on the east side of the clearing and, cursing the gods once again for the rain, he closed his eyes.

_Sasuke glared at Naruto, then whipped his head in Sakura's direction. He spun quickly to push an attacker of his own to the ground. The girl rose and sent a water attack barreling towards him. He danced out of the way, but it clipped his shoulder and sent him hurtling to the sodden earth. He rose fluidly and calmly sent a fireball towards her. She dodged neatly, but was tripped by one of Naruto's clones and went sprawling._

_Sasuke sent shuriken towards her. She rolled and sent senbo back towards him. He cried out in pain as they struck his arm. Droplets of his blood sprayed out, and the handprint he left on the ground was skewed at an awkward angle. Nevertheless, he managed to throw a kunai at her and a kunai at the man bending over Sakura, knocking the shuriken from her fingers and thrusting the man's own knife into his heart._

_Sasuke and his kunoichi opponent then engaged in a fierce battle, grappling with each other with hands slick with rain and blood. Suddenly, he gained the upper hand as her arm dropped from her body and Sakura collapsed from using too much chakra. He used the moment to scoop her into his arms and toss her to Naruto._

_He turned to his enemy, fire in his eyes, and sent his largest fireball at her. Her crisply burned body laid smoking in the rain. Sasuke didn't even look back as he stalked to meet Naruto at Sakura's body._

Kakashi stared at the clouded sky and looked for footprints leading from the clearing. The signs were there, plain to be seen, going in six different directions. Basic clones. He focused on the one trail with blood spattered on it. His genin were good, but not that good. He stepped out on it and began to run.

* * *

Naruto sniffled slightly. The steam was causing his nose to run. He looked up from his bowl of soup and stared into the roaring blaze in the hearth. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and dug back into his hot meal.

Sasuke watched as his teammate wolfed down his third bowl of soup. Sasuke himself was only on his second, and was having a hard time finishing the massive portion. He stirred it moodily, waiting for it to cool, and tightened the blanket around his shoulders.

Their clothes hung dripping in front of the fireplace and steam rose from them as they dried. Both of their hiates were on the table, and their weapons were gleaming on the same surface.

Naruto stood and ladled more soup into his gigantic bowl.

Sasuke rolled his eyes as he put his half-empty bowl on the floor and stretched lazily.

The only sounds came from Naruto, and they were simply sounds of pleasure as he ate the thick, hot soup.

Both boys jumped as heavy footsteps came down the stairs. Their rescuer clung to the banister as she made her tired way down, and stopped at the foot to catch her breath. Her clothes were still dripping, and she had traces of blood on her face. She carried in her arms a sopping mass of clothing.

She walked slowly to the fire and hung Sakura's clothes up next to Sasuke's.

Naruto looked up with a big grin plastered on his face, and exclaimed, "You make really awesome soup, Miss…ummm…Miss…well, anyway, the soup is really good!"

Sasuke yawned out a "Dobe," before asking in his regular monotone, "How is Sakura?"

The woman sat heavily in the armchair next to the fire and placed a log into the flames before replying. "Yes," she finally uttered, smiling wearily at the boys, "she's fine. Asleep, the poor dear, but she'll make it. She's completely healed, so all she has to do is get enough sleep, and some food in her, and she'll be as good as new."

Naruto jumped off the couch, spilling his soup on himself.

His cry of joy turned into one of pain, and the woman started up from her chair to help him. Sasuke picked the bowl up from the floor and placed it on the table before heading to the kitchen to find a cloth.

Naruto danced around, howling and clutching his chest.

The woman picked him up and set him back down on the couch, where she placed her hands on his burnt torso and murmured words of healing.

Sasuke returned with a cloth in time to see the warm glow of healing chakra dissipate. Naruto grinned and yelled, "I'm healed!" He hugged the woman fiercely, and thanked her. She sat back on the couch and laughed.

Half an hour later, the woman was curled up in the corner of the armchair, breathing quietly. Sasuke stood and covered her with a blanket, then turned to Naruto.

"Shall we," he began, but stopped when he saw that Naruto was also fast asleep, his mouth open, snoring softly. He smiled slightly as he put another log on the fire and crawled beside his teammate under the blanket.

This was how Sakura found the three of them when she descended the stairs early the next morning.

Smiling at the utter cuteness of her teammates curled up together, she tucked the blanket more firmly around them and stirred up the glowing embers of the fire. _I feel like I'm their mother_, she mused, as she often did, _a mother that Naruto does not remember and that Sasuke will not remember. _

She pushed another armchair to face the hearth and sank into it with a contented sigh.

Out in the forest, Kakashi still searched, growing more desperate by the hour.

* * *

A/N: So, here it is. I decided not to modify the ending too much, just 'cause I like the idea of Sakura coming down and seeing them all fast asleep, and I like the whole "mother" thing. It's one thing that the anime/manga doesn't really touch too much on, the fact that both Naruto and Sasuke lost their moms at an early age. Some details may be a bit off, even in this revision, because I've only seen to episode 65 (I'm watching the rest, don't worry, I just need o find the time), so I don't know everything. And, I haven't seen any Naruto since last Friday, so my details may be a bit fuzzy.

Let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 2: Awake

Disclaimer: Naruto – both the series and the character – belong to people much older and wiser than I. This is depressing.

**Higurashi House**

**Chapter Two: Awake**

Sasuke awoke to the very unpleasant sensation of Naruto's foot in his face.

He lay there, blinking, for a moment before attempting to extricate himself; a plot that did not succeed as well as he had hoped it might. Naruto only thrust his toes further into Sasuke's delicate nostrils and muttered something about the wonders of all-you-can-eat ramen.

"Oh, no," he continued, "I couldn't eat another bite…well, if you insist…"

This was followed by slurping sounds and excited squirming, which served only to further complicate Sasuke's life with the introduction of Naruto's other foot into his ear. Sasuke began to feel stifled, a feeling that was compounded when Naruto's thrashings about tossed the thick, heavy blanket right onto the Uchiha's encumbered face.

As the crisp morning air touched his skin, Naruto let out a blood-curdling yelp that Sasuke actually _felt_ and yelled at his teammate.

"Damn it, Sasuke! Stop hogging the covers!"

He proceeded to grab the quilt from Sasuke's head, and managed to get a rather sizeable chunk of black hair in his fist at the same time, which he didn't notice as he industriously covered himself with it and snuggled into the couch, an action which only served to impregnate Sasuke's nose and ear more fully with his grubby toes.

It was at this point that Sasuke decided that he had had enough.

Sakura stirred from her slumber at the sound of his voice and raised her head sleepily in a cloud of pink glory.

She stared in shock at the stormy glare that, while making its way to Naruto, who was crawling backwards on the floor, rested on her for a brief moment – which was more than enough to make her shiver in fright.

"Naruto no dobe! I've had about all I can take! First you ram your foot in my face – in my FACE – then you shove another one on my EAR, then you SMOTHER me with blankets, and, then, after attempting to KILL me with all of this, you have the NERVE to accuse ME of STEALING YOUR BLANKETS!!! YOU ARE A MORON! And, furthermore…"

As Sasuke continued his impassioned rant, Naruto continued crawling ever so slowly towards the big fireplace, where the embers of the blaze lay glowing lazily, casting his petrified shadow on the floor and making Sasuke look all the more frightening.

Sakura's eyes opened wide.

She had never seen Sasuke this angry – in fact, she couldn't remember the last time she had seen him express any emotion stronger than annoyance. And all of it over a foot in his face…

She gulped as she realized the extent to which the stalwart Uchiha valued his personal space. No wonder he silently fumed when she and Ino (and all the other girls in Konoha for that matter) hung off him.

Her thoughts and Sasuke's yelling were cut off abruptly by the crashing sound generated by a certain blonde bumping into the wood stacked neatly beside the hearth.

After a moment of shocked silence, Naruto and Sasuke began yelling at each other, and Sakura began to get angry herself. A vicious three-way argument ensued, and would have erupted into a fistfight if their hostess hadn't risen from her chair, fire in her eyes, and grabbed the boys by their ears.

"I," she remarked, bending slightly so as to be at eye level with the three genin, "am not impressed in the least. You three are acting less like shinobi who have faced life and death together and more like spoiled children."

Naruto began to explain, but she cut him off.

"Are you always like this, you three?"

Naruto scratched his neck.

Sasuke stood impassively, arms folded.

Sakura sighed as she realized that her teammates weren't going to speak. "I…I apologize for our behavior, firstly. It was rude of us to act this way in a house where we are guests." She bowed formally before carrying on. "Unfortunately, we're like this too often. We can fight well enough together, but we can't manage to get along for very long away from the training field."

Seeing that the boys had calmed down, the woman let go of their ears, and they both sulkily retreated to the couch.

She glared at them and turned back to the pink haired kunoichi who looked guiltily at the floor.

She sighed. "And your sensei does nothing about this? What has Konoha come to, that this should happen?"

Sakura looked up in surprise. "You have been to Konoha?"

Sasuke and Naruto slowly got up, and moved stealthily towards the door, keeping their gazes fixed steadily upon the woman.

"My dear girl," she replied, stepping closer to the fireplace, "I was trained there."

With an action quicker than Sakura's sleepy eyes could follow, she tossed Naruto and Sasuke their dry clothes.

"If you're leaving," she told them without turning from Sakura, "then you'll need these. It's cold this morning. Just don't go far – I'd hate to have to search for you again."

Laughter danced across her face as the boys crept sheepishly from the room.

Sakura stood still, her eyes wide and her hands clasped beneath her chin. Who was this woman, who could interrupt an argument, put them all to shame, and still laugh about it? Adults usually didn't have a sense of humor about such things.

The woman settled cross-legged into one of the big armchairs and grinned widely at the young kunoichi.

"Don't you just love them? They're the cutest little things…" she sighed happily, "Just like one of my old teammates and I, fighting all the time. Oh, this brings back so many memories!"

Sakura gaped.

The woman laughed at her expression and motioned for her to sit down.

Sakura sat.

"I suppose you'll want our names, then, if we're going to stay here until our sensei finds us," she began tentatively.

"Nonsense," the woman replied, shaking her brown curls, "it isn't House policy. If you want to tell me all sorts of details, far be it from me to stop you. But if you don't, then don't. It's as simple as that."

She shrugged slim shoulders and pulled one of the blankets onto her lap.

Sakura nodded. "I think I understand…you follow the old customs of the Higurashi Houses, don't you? No questions, no answers, no information of any kind. But I'll tell you anyway. I am Haruno Sakura, a genin from Konoha, and my teammates are Uzumaki Naruto – he's the blonde one with the whine and the big appetite – and Uchiha Sasuke – he's the really handsome one with black hair."

"Uchiha," mused her hostess, "now there's a name I haven't heard in a while…"

Sakura continued, her voice full of pride. "Our sensei is a jounin, of course – former ANBU, too! – And he is the renowned Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi!"

She looked expectantly at the woman, and was surprised to see the color drain from her listener's cheeks as she laughed shakily and mused, "Well, so many names I haven't heard in a while…Uzumaki, Uchiha," and her voice turned into a kind of caress as she finished in a whisper, "Hatake…"

"I forgot," Sakura said, "you were trained in our village. Of course you know those names! Did you ever personally know any of them? Oh…" she paused, remembering the "no answers" part of the Higurashi policy, "Never mind…"

The woman regained her poise and let out a clear, bell-like laugh.

"Don't think of it. I knew the last Uzumaki, a bitter old bachelor who just happened to be my sensei before I left the village. I was well acquainted with the Uchiha clan…in fact; our two clans were quite well connected. And one of my teammates was a good friend of your sensei when we were younger – so, you see, I did know quite a few of the people and clans you've mentioned. Konoha isn't that large – everyone knew everyone, for the most part. I suppose it's grown, though, since I left…and I'm forgetting my manners. You're probably wondering exactly who I am, aren't you?"

Sakura nodded.

The woman laughed. "How silly of me. My name is Higurashi Ayumi, and I am the last heir of the Higurashi clan. Let me see…I'm a jounin, I never did serve on an ANBU squad, although I would have liked to, and…let me think…I completed all of my training in Konoha, except my jounin certification was done in the Village Hidden in the Mist, for reasons that I'd rather keep to myself for now. Is there anything that I am forgetting?"

Sakura shook her head.

"I don't think so."

"Good," Ayumi replied, "then we can get started on your training. You probably don't get much individual attention, do you?"

Sakura's laugh had a bitter edge. "Of course not. Not with teammates as talented as Naruto and Sasuke. I'm just in their shadows – I'll never be much of a shinobi anyways. I don't have enough chakra."

"Nonsense!" Ayumi scoffed. "What stupidity! Kunoichi have something that no man will ever have – our instinct. Yes, it's all well and good that they are strong and skilled and have finely honed senses…but no man will ever have as sharp instincts of as strong a resolve as a woman. Just think, when a man is hurt, he cannot fight as well because the adrenaline in his body builds up to such a level that his movements are slowed. For a woman, this is not so. We have advantages, Sakura – big ones. Never let any man tell you that you are inferior."

She stood and folded the blanket, motioning for Sakura to get dressed as she did so.

"Come now. We've a lot of work to do, you know – your sensei is a man and cannot possibly know the best way to train a kunoichi. Only another kunoichi can tell the fine, womanly skills that you have, and you do have them. All we have to do is teach you how to use them. Shall we?"

* * *

­­­­­­­­­­­­Naruto and Sasuke sat on the front porch of the mansion, drinking in the crisp, misty air. The rain had finally stopped, and they were reveling in the dryness of the air despite the fact that their seats were wet and their feet were damp and Sasuke was rambling on about the grounds and the House and the Houses when Naruto interrupted with a question.

"Sasuke," he asked, "I get all this stuff about the safe houses and all that, and I get the weird bloodline limit that this clan had, but something's been bugging me…how do you know all this?"

The taller boy shrugged.

"I listened in class at the Academy?" he guessed.

"No, seriously! You know details that Iruka-sensei couldn't possibly have taught us!"

"It's a bit embarrassing…"

"Eavesdropping?"

"No, it has to do with my clan."

Naruto stared at his shoes. "You don't have to tell me about it, Sasuke…I know how hard talking about your family is for you."

"No, no, this is older than my family…it goes back to a time before Konoha was founded, when my clan was mighty and revered by all, except for one pesky upstart clan, the Higurashi."

And Sasuke spun a tale that left Naruto's mouth hanging open wider than it had in a long while.

"Years ago, so far back most people don't remember it, the Uchiha clan took in a skinny, starving boy. He had been beaten and chased from his village because, in an attempt to protect himself from a soldier who was menacing him, he ended up committing a murder. He had no idea how it happened, only that he was desperate and whispered a spell that his mother had taught him, while making the sign she had shown him to ward off evil. He said that a purple light flashed, and when he opened his eyes, the soldier was lying on the ground, his dagger in his throat, and the entire village was running to see what had happened.

"My ancestors discovered that the hand sign was one for a jutsu, and the 'spell' he had whispered were the words that activated it. It was a bloodline limit, one that could reverse any jutsu or weapon. My clan always believed that the Higurashi were the most ancient of clans, and that they had gradually died out and that this boy was the last remaining member. His mother had probably given him the way to use his gift in the only way she knew how, and he had used it, and it was because of this that he came to us and because of us that the Higurashi clan rebuilt itself.

"The boy eventually married, and had children, who married and had children, and so on and so forth, until the clan was large and prosperous. But, somehow – and both clans have different versions of the story – they had a falling out with the Uchiha clan and thus began a feud that lasted nearly a century. They hated us, we hated them, but we couldn't battle – it was mutually destructive. We copied jutsu and analyzed moves; they repelled jutsu and weapons. Fights never went anywhere, and soon it was decreed by the Second Hokage that the two clans should have no involvement with each other. They went their way and worked with their Houses, and we went ours and worked on building our clan. You know the rest – how they eventually went almost completely extinct and all that.

"But what a lot of people don't know is that, when Itachi was done killing our clan, he killed the rest of them, which wasn't so hard because there couldn't have been more than a dozen weak, sleepy elders left."

Sasuke took a deep breath to still his voice and dry the tears that threatened to well up at the mention of his older brother.

Naruto nodded thoughtfully.

"I think I get it. So, will you be allowed to stay?"

"Of course. It's always been Higurashi policy to never turn anyone away from a House, and the Hokage's orders allowed for that."

"I see…hey, I wonder where Kakashi is… Do we have to wait for him for lunch? All this talk has made me hungry."

"Dobe," Sasuke murmured, but he followed the kitsune inside anyway.

* * *

Deep in the rain-soaked forest, Kakshi was growing more and more desperate by the minute. He had found the clearing without problem, and, upon examining the footprints and blood spatter pattern, realized that no major conflict had happened – probably just Naruto being jumpy.

The amount of Sakura's blood concerned him, though – losing that much blood was never a good thing. He knew from experience.

He shivered and thrust the thought away, resolving not to think of it again.

He slumped down at the base of a tree, dejected and exhausted.

He couldn't feel the presence of his genin, and he was obviously not going to be as effective after being awake for over 48 hours – he quietly cursed Gai and his drinking binges and his stupid rivalry and his stupid drinking contests…

After summoning Pakkun and pointing to the edge of the clearing, he fell asleep, drained and worried, and dreamt of fire and swords and the swirling red eyes of his best friend in the whole world.

* * *

A/N: So, yes…je update. This one is essentially just a connecting chapter, and I should be able to write more soon enough. Do let me know what you think…it's a lot better than the original, let me tell you that much. Thanks to superawesome Sweet-Plum and lilazndragonx for reviewing the last installments…love you forever! 


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Naruto, Adventure, Drama