Chapter 16: Team Training Arc: Four

Dislclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

"Kiho-baachan?" I call out as we cross the threshold. The hallway is dark, and the lights aren't on in any of the rooms, but that didn't mean that she isn't home. Kiho-baachan preferred to live in the dark, which had to be symbolism, but there are too many ways to interpret how it might be, given that Baachan is married to a Nara, owns a flower garden, had light hair, and is a Yamanaka by birthright.

In fact, as we walk down the hallway, I hear the water running in the kitchen. Kiho-baachan is rinsing dishes by the sink in the light of a dying sun, but she turns towards us as we enter the kitchen.

"Oh, you're back." She shuts off the water. "Is the Waste of Space with you?" We all wince upon hearing Baachan's endearment for Sensei.

"Actually, Kiho-baachan." Tokuma begins, and I continue.

"Sensei's in the hospital, the Kumo nin got to him."

To her credit, Baachan doesn't drop a dish or pale upon hearing the news. Instead, she dries her hands on her apron and takes it off with a sigh. "Well, there was always the chance of that happening. Capture mission intel is famously spotty." She looks at us, at our muted subdued expressions and sets a hand on her hip. "Come now, cheer up, he's not in any danger of actually dying."

"That is correct, Kiho-baachan." Muta fidgets with a loose thread on one his sleeves. "The medics say that Sensei will get off with at most a few new scars."

"Well, that's all that he wanted. You all are safe. No one's dead. And I presume since no one has burst into tears yet, that the mission capture was successful." She herds us towards the kitchen table, and Toku pulls a chair out for her.

After a long examination through which we sit in silence, she props her elbows on the table and sighs. "Did something happen out there that you want to tell me about?"

"We killed the target." Toku blurts out, and then slaps a hand over his mouth.

"What Toku meant to say, is that..." I trail off, but no one says anything of note. "That we don't know who actually ended up killing the person."

Kiho-baachan nods with a new understanding in her eyes. "Let me guess, none of you feel guilty for actually contributing to the death." We nod. "That's perfectly normal. You are happy because you are alive, and your friends are alive, and your sensei is alive." She looks around at us, though it's already quite dark. "It's only when you seek out killing because the act of killing makes you happy that you need professional help. Don't be guilty that you killed the target before she could kill you."

Tokuma shudders. "I stabbed a man twice through his knees. I had to incapacitate him somehow before he killed Sensei."

"And you felt triumphant because you had the power to save someone precious to you." Kiho-baachan counters. "Not because he was in pain."

Tokuma nods. "I think I understand now."

Kiho-baachan smiles. "Well, let's go visit him in the hospital now, so I can joke about how he was nearly taken down by a pair of chunin."

The image of Sensei's grumpy face must have appeared to all of us at the same time because we burst out giggling.

"You bet your life on a group of genin?" Sensei's hospital room door is open, and the question that sneaks out of the open doorway makes all of us wince. Yes, we were stupidly lucky and so not ready for that fight, but everyone's still alive.

"Ino-niisan, I bet my life on my students. Not any random group of three genin, the three that I've taught for nearly a year now. That has to mean something to you, doesn't it?" Sensei's voice is placid, but there's a dangerous edge to it. So that's Kiho-baachan's older brother? Ino-niichan according to her.

"What were you thinking?" The other man roars back. "You could have all been killed. How could you have let something this stupid happen?" There's a sharp intake of breath, and the man continues yelling. "I thought you had a brain, Nara! Use it or you'll leave my sister a widow."

Kiho-baachan straightens up and marches through the door. "Shut up, Niichan before I decide to punch you." She gestures for us to come in, and turns a saccharine smile on Sensei who's still in the bed. "Look what I brought you, Darling." From across the bed, she shoots Yamanaka Inoichi a poisonous look. "Don't mind my dear brother, ducklings. He won't hurt you."

Wait. Kiho-baachan is Ino's aunt? Looking back it is a little obvious, but still, Naruto had never mentioned that Ino had an aunt.

"It's lovely to see you too, Honey Bun." It seems that in front of his brother-in-law Sensei didn't dare call Kiho-baachan 'Vicious hag.'

"Kiho-chan, please." Kiho-baachan ignores Inoichi's attempts to talk to her.

"Oh Darling, did the big bad chunins hurt you too bad?" She presses a hand to her heart in a fit of dramatics, and bats her eyes at Sensei who was well on his way to turning scarlet. "Do you need help walking, a glass of water?"

"Oh, please stop that." Sensei mumbles and looks at us. "No one was hurt too badly right? No scars?"

We nod. "Everyone's fine except you, Sensei." I sit down on the other side of his bed. "Kakashi's team brought us back."

Sensei raises both eyebrows at this. "Kakashi?" Right, no one knows that I know Hatake Kakashi.

"Erm..." I say and try to figure out how to explain this. "I dragged him to my house and fed him hangover cure at one point?"

Sensei nods. "That's very interesting, Hana-chan. You'll have to tell me more about it."

I feel a shiver crawl down my spine. Something told me that Sensei would pull out the Papa Bear impersonation with a hapless scarecrow very soon.

After that disconcerting conversation with a bed ridden Sensei while doing my best to ignore a sulking Inoichi in the corner, I head home. Home to Kiba and Kaa-san and Cousin Ashi and Cousin Gaku. Home to family.

Kiba's telling me a very interesting story about his toes, a can of paint and the neighborhood cat when Kaa-san comes back. "Oh, Hana, I heard your mission was..."

"It was an experience." I respond.

Kiba's eyes went wide. "Nee-chan had a mission?" He scoots closer and stares at me with stars in his eyes. "Nee-chan fights bad ninja?"

I feel a twinge of something. "Yes, I fought bad ninja." In fact, Nee-chan took a bite or two out of a bad ninja today, Kiba.

"But that's so cool." He says, and I bop him on the head.

"It's not cool or very fun." Better that he hears it early than late. Better that he knows what's going on.

"But that means Nee-chan is super strong." He pats me on the arm. "The bad ninja are always super strong and you won, so you must be stronger."

I swallow, and my mouth is thick with blood again. "It was a group effort, Kiba-chan." I pick him up and walk towards the kitchen with Kaa-chan. "You have to work with your teammates." Hopefully, his future teammates would indeed be Shino and Hinata, both of whom were easy to work with and would have his back. "That's what shinobi from Konoha do."

He nods and clambers onto his chair. "I'm going to be just like Nee-chan and fight bad ninja and do cool things." He announces this all in one breath before he shoves a large piece of meat into his mouth and chews like a chipmunk.

And I am not sorry that I have to live with the taste of blood in my mouth if it means that I'm coming home to my brother who thinks that I hung the sun and stars.

After dinner, Kaa-san puts Kiba to bed despite his vibrating energy at wanting to hear the story of the so called 'bad ninja.' She comes back to sit with me on the couch. "You don't look to good, Little Nose."

I shrug. "We killed someone, and I'm alright with that. I talked to Kiho-baachan and Sensei about it." I turn to look at Kaa-san who doesn't look worried, just slightly concerned. "And Sensei and Muta was injured, Toku was traumatized because he became kind of violent about incapacitating the other assailant."

Kaa-san's facial features smooth out a little. "So what's the problem, pup?"

I feel tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. Kaa-san hadn't called me pup since I graduated from the academy. "I bit her." I say, and feel her arms around me. I raise a hand to grip her shirt like I'm three years old instead of seven and a half going on twenty five. "And I can still taste the blood in my mouth and I don't know what to do."

"That's the problem with being an Inuzuka, pup. You get the short end of the stick with that." Kaa-san rubs my back. "It'll get better." You'll get used to it. "It'll get better once you can be certain of why you're killing." It'll be better if you know what your purpose is.

I nod. "Alright."

The next morning I take Kiba with me into the flea market, so we can shop for sweets. "Hey, Nee-chan."

I look down at him. "What is it?"

He looks up at me with a surprising amount of seriousness in his dark eyes. "Do we have an Otou-san?"

I freeze. He doesn't remember anything about Tou-san at all. Tou-san died before he was even born. "Of course we do, Kiba-chan. Why'd you ask?" I keep my tone light as I hand over a few ryo for the lemon candies that Kiba and I both adore.

"Well." He says as he unwraps the hard candy and pops it into his mouth. "Other kids have Otou-sans that come home at night, you know." He checks to make sure that I'm listening, and I assure him that indeed I am. "But we don't. He doesn't come back." Suddenly his eyes light up and he gestures wildly. "Is Tou-san on a super secret mission that takes forever? Is that why he's never home?"

I sigh. "No, Kiba-chan." I say as I pick him up and swing him onto my shoulders. "That's not why he's not at home."

He unwraps a candy for me and sticks it against my mouth. "For Nee-chan."

I open my mouth and he sticks it in. "Thanks, Kiba-chan." I try to figure out how to best explain our situation in a way that he'd understand. "You know, Kiba-chan. Tou-san's actually always at home. You just can't see him." His hands come to rest in my hair, and they twist every which way as he tries to understand. It's actually quiet painful, but he doesn't know that, and I haven't the heart to stop him. "We can visit him today if you'd like." I offer, and he cheers.

"Yeah! We should do that!"

I turn back towards the compound and pick up the pace. If we were going to go see Tou-san, we might as well find all the pictures there were of him in the house.

An hour later, I hold Kiba's hand as we walk down the path to the family cemetery. "But this place is for old people." Kiba whispers as he scrunches up his nose. "Like Oji-san and Kosshi-baa."

"Not everyone who's watching us is old, Kiba-chan." I prod his cheek, and pull him towards the back. "Tou-san's here too."

There'd been more burials since Tou-san's funeral, but he held a row all to himself. "Hello Tou-san." I say, and somehow looking at this isn't as painful as it used to be. "Kiba-chan and I are here to see you." I place the lilies down in the cup reserved for flowers. "I think he'll be a great ninja when he grows up."

Kiba tugs at my pants leg. "Nee-chan." He whispers. "Nee-chan?" He seems almost hesitant but I don't know why it would be.

"Hmm?" It is better not to ask what's wrong. There might not even be anything wrong.

"Tou-san's dead?" His eyes are as round as saucers.

I nod and pull out a picture. "This is what Tou-san looks like."

Kiba stares at the blond-haired man in the picture, at the grave stone, at me and then at his own hands. "We look lots like Kaa-san." He says at last, sitting down on the ground.

I tap him on the end of his nose. "We have his nose though."

Kiba looks back at me. "Nee-chan looks more like him."

I hug him. "He loves us very much."

Kiba wriggles even closer as if trying to stick himself to me. "M not mad that he's not home now." I pat his shoulder. "But Nee-chan's still best." He whispers and I squeeze him just a little harder than normal.

"I'm glad you're not mad anymore. Tou-san would be here with us if he could."

We walk out to the park later, because Kiba is set on building in a sandcastle and that isn't something we could do at home. And even though I'd run around Konoha by myself at his age, I didn't trust my little brother to go alone. Kiba is Kiba, and he isn't an old soul in a young body. He's actually just a two and a half year old. He's sitting on my shoulders again as we trot down the street.

He pulls another candy from his pockets, and waves it in front of me. "For Nee-chan."

I poke his cheek. "You know you shouldn't eat so many of these. You'll rot your teeth if you do that, and then they'd turn black and fall out."

He squeaks. "But this one's for Nee-chan!" I open my mouth to protest and he sticks it in my mouth instead. "See, it's Nee-chan's teeth that'll be rotting now." I chuckle. If he isn't so generous and constantly feeding me candy, I'd have a hard time giving him any candy at all.

I turn the corner and set him down at the edge of the park. "I'll go over and sit on the swing, alright?"

He nods furiously. "Nee-chan should come over and see my sand castle when I'm done!" I nod and ruffle his hair, which is honestly much more fun to ruffle than mine and he tries to slap my hands away. "Don't do that." After I'm done he attempts to straighten out his unruly locks. "We don't match anymore when that happens."

"We'll always match here." I say as I poke his adorably chubby cheeks. "We have the clan birthmarks remember. We'll always match."

He breaks out into a face splitting smile and races off to the sand pit. "Don't forget to come and look at my sandcastle, Nee-chan!"

I laugh and nod. Then I make my way over to sit on the swings.

"Nee-chan! Nee-chan!" Kiba's racing at me as fast as his short legs could carry me, and for the first time in a while, I'm seeing him furious. "Nee-chan you've gotta come over."

I hop off the swing and scoop him up. "What's the matter, Kiba-chan?"

He's gesturing wildly at this point and nearly smacks me in the face, but I catch his fist in time. "There's a real meanie by the sand pit and he says that you aren't the best Nee-chan in the world 'cause he's got a Niisan that's better and-"

Oh boy. I think. There's so many ways that this could go wrong. Nevertheless, I am a little curious about the little boy who thought that he had a better elder sibling than me. "Well, let's go back to the sand pit and I'll build you a better castle, alright?" Sure, maybe using a tiny bit of earth chakra to make those sand turrets more stable would be cheating, but I still had my pride as an elder sibling.

"Yeah!" Kiba cheers. "We'll make the best castle ever!"

The two boys with the Uchiwa on their shirts were not who I was expecting when Kiba told me there were meanies.

"Itachi-kun?" I ask, and he turns around with a smile.

"Hello Hana-chan." Oh, well, sorry Kiba. I'm not sure if I can compare to the famous Niisan of legend.

"Kiba-chan said that someone thought I wasn't a good sibling?" I ask, as I sit down.

Kiba wriggles out of my arms and smacks at the sandpit causing a part of Sasuke's tower to fall down.

Sasuke crosses his arms and glares at my little brother. "I already told you, Niisan's better cause he's a ninja."

Kiba growls and swipes away the rest of Sasuke's tower. "Well Nee-chan's also a ninja and she's better than anyone, so there." Kiba crosses his arms as well and scowls fiercely at Sasuke.

"Kiba-chan..." I whisper while leaning down to tickle him. "Don't be mad."

He turns to me with betrayal in his eyes. "But you are the best Nee-chan in the world!"

I laugh. "But you see, Sasuke doesn't have a Nee-chan. He has a Niisan. That's different." And then I look over at Sasuke and Itachi. "Can we call a truce on the debate?"

Sasuke frowns, but Itachi pokes his forehead. "Say yes, Otouto. Hana's a friend."

We share a fleeting smile, but our little brothers seem to have declared a mutual hatred and refused to pay any attention to each other. Well, I'll take what I can get at this point.

A.N. And now we cool down from the panic of last chapter and we debrief.

Thanks to Sis, Snidekick and Shy911 for reviewing! You all are great!

Don't worry Snidekick, Pakkun will show up later, I happen to have a soft spot for him.

And Shy911, I feel your pain. Math homework has always fried my brain as well.

~Tavina.