Chapter 36: Team Leader Arc: One

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

I walk with Sasuke back to the Uchiha Compound for team dinner after Kiba bids him goodbye at the entrance of the kennels. Sasuke had agreed that the new puppies are the cutest. It's to be our last team dinner, for we'd go our separate ways tomorrow. Toku and I are announcing our intended specializations, and Itachi...I didn't know what Itachi would be doing Sensei...Sensei is supposed to go back to Crypt tomorrow, but he'd been weak and not entirely functioning when we'd walked him to his house earlier.

I am unsure of how to feel. He doesn't want to tell us about what he did to his soul, but he'd promised to come to dinner.

"Hana-san?" Sasuke asks. "Is Niisan okay?" Perceptive child. Did you notice your brother's difference? Itachi hadn't been entirely normal either, and I am sure, Sasuke who loved his brother so dearly would notice such a shift.

"Why do you think that, Sasuke-chan?" I ask, because perhaps he doesn't have solid suspicions and I could dispel his doubts the same way that a Futon jutsu could dispel wood smoke.

"Niisan's strange." He tells me, his dark eyes huge against the backdrop of his face. "He should be happy he got promoted, right?" Well. I can't tell you about what happened really.

I smooth down the ends of his hair. Little duck tailed boy, why must you be so persistent? "The Chunin Exams were in Iwa." I say carefully. "And your Niisan is concerned because he killed someone." He killed me to be precise, but there's no need to traumatize you.

Sasuke frowns. "But Niisan doesn't normally react to those sorts of things." Itachi...did react, he felt death as painfully as and probably more than most shinobi in the forces. But he probably didn't normally let Sasuke see such things. For him to have slipped in front of his precious Otouto...I shake my head to clear the thoughts like cobwebs away from the current moment.

"All death impacts us, big or small." I tell him at last as we step through the gates of the Uchiha District. "And your Niisan is no different. Give him time." At least I hope time will dull the edge of his pain.

If not, he will learn to hide it better from Sasuke, so Sasuke can stop worrying at least just a little.

Sasuke is unconvinced. "Why aren't you upset then? Didn't you kill anyone?" What do you think I am?

"You don't know me as well." I say gently, a hand on his shoulder. "And I'd thank you not to ask if I killed anyone." Your brother. Toku. I killed them both.

I slit the throat of two defenseless, but still reprehensible men not two hours away from here. I ripped out a girl's throat at a very public event this time last year. I am not blameless. I have bloody hands.

Sasuke is quiet as we enter his house.

I find Fugaku-san in his study before dinner. Toku and Sensei have yet to arrive, and when I'd asked about Itachi, Mikoto-san had frowned and said he was still at the training field.

"Fugaku-san?" I step past the doorway, and hold the flowers in front of me like a shield. Do you blame me for what happened to your son? Perhaps awakening the Mangekyo is an event acknowledged as a gain, but it doesn't feel right to celebrate the occasion. Thus, I had chosen the bouquet very carefully this time.

"And are you willing to tell me what those mean?" Fugaku-san raises his eyes from his papers to glance at me. He's looking at my proffered flowers with what might be disapproval, or it might simply be interest.

I don't have a clue. "Daffodils for respect." I say, sliding the bright yellow flowers into the vase at the edge of his desk. "White anemones for sincerity." The little white flowers go into the vase as well. "And bluebells for thankfulness."

He stops me from putting those in the vase. "Why?"

Why am I thankful? "No one died." I say. "I am thankful that we are all still alive."

He slides the bluebells into the vase himself. "A good choice." He says and scrutinizes my face for something. "Itachi has gained the next stage of his sharingan." He says at last.

Eh. Fugaku-san is handing out clan secrets? Is the sky falling?

"I see." I say, because if not, what else do I say? Excuse me, Fugaku-san, can you enlighten me as to why your son gained the Mangekyo, which happens when one kills one's best friend, because he thought he killed me?

"You have questions." Fugaku-san folds his hands together and sets them on his desk. His eyes briefly glance at my flowers. "Ask."

"Is Itachi going to be okay?" Fugaku-san's face is still a mask of stone plated nothing, and it makes me very uncomfortable so the next words just jump out of my mouth with no warnings or understanding whatsoever. "I mean, his eyes started bleeding and then Sensei had to-" I don't finish that thought. I do have some measure of self preservation. "And then he's been weird all the way home." I finish, and stare at my feet because dear Kami. I messed up again.

Fugaku-san sets a finger under my chin and tilts my head back up so I'm again, looking at his face instead of the ground. "Itachi shall be fine." His eyes flicker over my face. "He cares for you a good deal."

"Why?" I ask, and immediately feel incredibly small and silly.

The corners of Fugaku-san's mouth tightens just a little. Is he about to smile or about to frown? Why can't I tell? Why has no one written a manual about how to read facial expressions off of this man? "You are a unique individual." That tells me nothing. Fugaku-san rises and heads towards the door. "He will explain."

Both Sensei and Kiho-baachan show up for dinner. I suspect it is not because Kiho-baachan wanted to show up at dinner with the Uchihas, but more to the point that Sensei is still having a hard time existing as a semi decent human being without a human cane of some sort.

Fugaku-san and I are watching, perhaps we are hiding, behind the door.

He's not leaning heavily on her shoulder, but she's still very subtly preventing him from tipping over. "Oh, Mikoto-san!" Kiho-baachan's smile could light the world on fire, it's so abnormally irritable. "It's so good to see you."

Mikoto-san's answering smile is equally sharp. "Indeed, Kiho-chan. How lovely is it that we meet again." Do these two women have a history or something?

"Darling." Sensei drawls. "Leave the claws outside please."

Kiho-baachan turns to him with a smile so poisonous that even Sensei almost flinches. "I will never forgive the woman that slandered Kai-kun." Mikoto-san once said something bad about Tou-san?

I'm not entirely surprised about this, but it does hurt a little.

"And I said that if you couldn't forgive it, you shouldn't come." Sensei spares her a particularly jaundiced glance. "My dear, the past is over." He meets Mikoto-san's eyes with that same dead tired look. "If we are unwelcome we will turn around and leave." Even though he claims the past is over, he doesn't actually believe it.

Kiho-baachan's hand strays towards his chest. "Breathe, Ensui." That is the first time that I've heard Kiho-baachan call Sensei by his actual name.

Sensei's eyes slide closed, and he looks bruised.

"No." Mikoto-san steps back to let them in. "You are perfectly welcome, Nara-san."

"We." Sensei murmurs. "We cannot be half of a whole." If Sensei isn't so strange right now, I would have called his statement romantic. As it is, it hints of something lurking deep inside his shadow, down to the depths of his mind.

"You both are welcome." Fugaku-san's striding into the room.

Mikoto-san turns towards him, a question in her eyes. I do not get to see how he answers her, but she does turn back to smile more politely at Sensei and Kiho-baachan. "Do come in, Nara-san, Kiho-san."

"And what is it that you want to specialize in, Toku-kun?" Mikoto-san smiles warmly at my Hyuga teammate who's gorging himself on food like there's no tomorrow.

"I'm joining Infiltration." Toku answers after he's finished chewing. "Under Kiho-baachan as her apprentice hopefully." He beams as though the room hadn't suddenly chilled just a little. "Hey Hana-chan, are you going to join the Tracking Division with Mu-kun?"

"I believe." Fugaku-san intercedes, the first time he's spoken since we sat down at the dinner table. "That Inuzuka-chan intended to join the Military Police."

Toku turns to me with a question in his eyes. "Really? You never said anything about it before."

"You never really asked before." I answer. "But it is my intention to apply." And it seems that Fugaku-san is predisposed to accept me now that he's said that I intend to join at public dinner.

Toku nods. "Well, you didn't ever say anything about your dreams after you become chunin during academy or afterwards." He grins at me. "Just think, we'll have one tracking specialist, one infiltration specialist, one police officer and one in ANBU by the time we're done."

"Actually." Sensei mutters. "I have something to say about the ANBU part of that."

All eyes swivel over to him. "I always believed that Itachi would make a great ANBU officer." Mikoto-san counters mildly. "He's always been very talented."

"ANBU will rip your kind hearted son to shreds." Sensei comments flatly. "It doesn't swallow you whole like the normal forces. It rips you and shatters you to pieces."

"It has always been Itachi's dream to be in ANBU." Fugaku-san sets his rice bowl down. "Sasuke. It's past your bed time."

Sasuke looks around the table worriedly, especially at Itachi whose head is still bowed over his bowl of rice, bangs falling forwards. He doesn't look so great. But Sasuke is still very obedient despite spending so much time with my little brother. He gets up and goes.

"And I'm telling you that I want him as my apprentice in Crypt instead." Sensei's still gently suggesting it, but there's an undercurrent of steel in his voice.

"Are you trying to prevent my son from becoming his full potential?" Mikoto-san's chopsticks clatter loudly onto the table. "Is this how you use our trust?"

"If it weren't for Ensui you wouldn't have a son anymore." Kiho-baachan leaps up and glares at Mikoto-san from across the table. "Do you know what he did to make sure that Ita-kun stayed safe? Do you understand what he's given up?" Her face is twisted with anger and pain. "You don't have any respect for others. You're still exactly the same as you were back then."

"Kiho-baachan." Itachi sighs. "It is my fault that I did not tell them." He raises his head for the first time since we'd sat down to dinner. "Please don't be angry."

Kiho-baachan deflates. "It's not your fault duckling. What the stupid Waste of Space did was his choice and he made it. It is not to do with you." She squishes his cheeks together. "You just concentrate on getting better, alright?"

"Sensei." Toku sets his bowl down as well. "What does that kinjutsu do to you?"

Mikoto-san gasps. "Kinjutsu?"

Toku meets her eyes without a shred of sympathy. "Sensei siphoned Ita-kun's negative energy after Ita-kun collapsed during the third exam in Iwa." He frowns at Sensei. "Now tell us what's going to happen to you."

Sensei's eyes are closed. "I am an invalid at the moment." I'd figured so, but he said at the moment.

"How long, Sensei?" I ask, my tongue sticking to my throat. "How long?" Please don't say forever, Sensei. Please.

"A year." He sighs. "Maybe two." He reaches out and ruffles my hair with a rueful smile. "I'm not as young as I used to be. But don't you worry, Sprout. I'll be fine in the end." Two years. Maybe more.

Sensei won't be able to fight for two years?

A pit opens in my stomach. That's what he gave up for this technique?

The silence at the table is total, until Itachi draws in a long breath. "I wish to be Sensei's apprentice, Tou-san."

Fugaku-san inclines his head. "A year."

Itachi frowns, the first expression he's made tonight. "Two."

"One and a half." Fugaku-san counters.

"Two." Itachi insists. "Two."

"You will explain to the clan." Fugaku-san nods once. "Two years."

And Itachi has avoided entering ANBU for another two years under his own power.

Sensei, Kiho-baachan and Toku leave shortly after the fallout at the dinner table, and only I remain. Itachi rises and heads outside to sit on the porch, and I also rise to follow him, but Fugaku-san stops me. "A moment, Inuzuka-chan."

I turn to look up at him, a hand fidgeting against my new flack jacket. "Yes?"

"Give your application a year before turning one in." Fugaku-san inclines his head towards me. "I did not expect your promotion so quickly." What does that have to do with anything? "The clan would resist." He clarifies.

Is he catching on that I don't understand him? He's going to use a year to make sure I get in?

For me?

I flush, and bow more than ninety degrees at him. "Thank you very much, Fugaku-san."

"Hn." He pulls me up by the shoulder. "Speak to Itachi." He orders, and then he is plodding off, back to his study. In the gloomy light of the lanterns, his shoulders look stooped and tired.

"Hello, Ita-kun." I whisper as I sit down next to him on the swing on the porch.

He glances at me briefly. "Hello Hana."

"Your Tou-san said you gained the next level of the sharingan." I stop there, not sure of how to continue. I do not want to push.

"Yes." Itachi murmurs. "The Mangekyo." We sit in silence for a long time before he opens his mouth to speak again. "It activates when an Uchiha with an active sharingan witnesses the death of someone...dearest to them."

Dearest. He did not say best friend. Does it mean the same to him?

"You burned." Itachi whispers, and his head comes to rest on my shoulder. "You'd drawn a kunai, and it was reflex." I could picture the scene in my mind's eye. Toku and I walking into the room. He'd known something was wrong, but he'd held off until we drew live weapons.

"I did not burn." I say, because I truly did not burn. I wasn't even there. It feels like an awful greasy lie, that he should have to suffer, that Sensei should have to suffer just because of the death of a mud clone.

"You screamed." Itachi trembles. "It sounded like you." I should let him talk. He needs to talk about this with someone. "They hurt then." He brushes a hand over his eyes. "But they didn't bleed."

"Then.." Then it wasn't me after all.

"During the third exam." Itachi murmurs a hand playing with his long hair. "The genjustu. You burned again." Twice? The genjutsu was already messing with his head. It's not implausible that a good friend being burned to death twice would do the trick."But I heard your voice. You wouldn't stop screaming." He shudders. "It must be morbid for you."

I card my fingers through his long bangs. "No." You're my teammate. My brother. How could I deny you the chance to talk? "I am just confused." I mutter.

"Confused?"

"I did not realize that I was dear to you." I do not say dearest. It implies something else that he doesn't mean.

Itachi sits up, his eyes dark and his face pale in the moonlight. "You are very dear to me, Hana." He closes his eyes. "You were the first friend I made that was not an Uchiha."

"I didn't like you very much then." I correct him. "There was tolerance."

"You're misremembering." Itachi takes me by the shoulders, and turns me so I face the moon. "You saved my life, even if you didn't like me very much." The Kyubi. That one night we spent in the shelter. "You're Tou-san's favorite. Everyone who meets you likes you somehow." His head's resting on my shoulder again. "You were so interesting."

"Am I not interesting anymore?" I chide gently.

"You are an onion." He laughs, as dry as desert wind, but it's still a laugh. "Every time I think I know you, you're different again. Every time I cut another onion I think I won't cry, but I cry again."

I can't help it, the giggles burst out of me, a cascade of hysteria and warmth. "I can't imagine you cutting onions, Ita-kun."

And he chuckles too. "Well, I can't see you with a cat either, Hana-chan." A cat? I ponder, and the concept of a cat seems far removed from me. Why would I want a cat when I have the Triplets?

I'm walking down the street a week afterwards when I am pulled into an alleyway and then dragged into a bar. What? I'm dropped rather unceremoniously like a sack of meal onto a bar stool.

"You've been avoiding me, Hana-chan." Kakashi's face is very close to mine, and I resist the urge to scream.

"You're the one that's been avoiding me, Kakashi-san!" I throw up my hands. "You didn't want to talk all the way back from Iwa. Why are you so concerned about my life now?"

"Are you entering Tracking?" The question is completely out of left field.

"No?" I state, and suddenly Kakashi's halfway to the door. I scramble after him. "Wait!"

He doesn't wait, but neither does he shushin away like I know he could. Clearly, he's still in the mood to humor me.

"What did you want, Hana-chan?" He sounds bland again. Blander than green tea toothpaste. Blander than plain boiled noodles without even a pinch of salt.

"I'll make you food?" I ask. I'm sure he can make himself food better than me, but he seems to enjoy having food made for him.

He enjoys having food made for him. The thought strikes me like a lightning bolt. He hasn't had anyone make food specifically for him since his team was wiped out, maybe even earlier.

Suddenly offering to make him food seems more like offering him a home.

He sighs. "No need for that Hana-chan." Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I've offered once.

I'll do it again. "It's not a need, Kakashi-san." I reply, and finally catch up to him. "It's a wish."

We end up sitting in his apartment again, and I boil plain noodles and cook tomatoes and eggs on the side.

There's no need to visit the grocery store. I check his refrigerator first, and then his pantry. Both are fully stocked.

He pulls the mask down when I set the two things in front of him.

He pulls it down without seemingly a second thought. I sit on the other side of the table. He'd acquired a second, mismatched chair from someplace, and it's a sign that he's had more company since the last time I'd been around.

"You have no comments?" He asks after he replaces the mask.

"What am I commenting on?" I ask him, an eyebrow raised. "How you got a scar on your face? Why you don't have a harelip or buck teeth?" Honestly. "Am I supposed to tell you that your face is decidedly symmetrical?"

He eye smiles at me. "Decidedly symmetrical?"

"Symmetrical faces are more trustworthy and generally considered pretty." I parrot at him. "The human brain recognizes symmetry as a pleasing element." I shouldn't tell Kakashi this. He's a troll.

His shoulders shake from the force of his silent laughter. "Generally considered pretty? Pleasing element?" He gasps. "You're too funny, Hana-chan."

I cross my arms and frown at him. "It's not nice to fish for compliments, Kakashi-san." But then the real reason why I'm here resurfaces. "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"You shouldn't have." And his eye smile is once more, a hundred percent plastic. "But I forgive you."

"No you don't." I jab a finger in the direction of his one visible eye. "You only eye smile like you're plastic when you really aren't forgiving me."

"I'm attempting to forgive you." He amends.

"Much better." I stand up and make for the door. "Next time, don't drag a poor under aged chunin into a bar."

A.N. And thus, we have finally, Mangekyo explanations, Sensei's problems revealed, and Kakashi, a weird amount of troll!Kakashi. I swear he takes up so much space in this story and he wasn't even supposed to be an important character when I was planning these scenes, but he's becoming more important.

He grew a mind of his own, demanded to appear in more scenes and became an angsty person who's scenes have layers. It's so weird.

Thanks to WhiteFang001 (Yes, Nara-sensei will continue to appear. He will continue to have weight. I'm really fond of him.), Estarc (Welcome to Bloodless! I'm glad to hear about your feedback, and yeah, I wish Tsume made it into the text more often, but it's difficult at times when the plot's moving. Hana thinks of her mother as her rock and her home though. She's very important. She just doesn't appear so often.), Alizay (Yes, Hana's important to the Itachi of this universe, which is rapidly sliding into a weird sort of alternate universe. As for what role she'll play for him, we will continue forward and see.) and Thorn98biter (Thank you so much. I'm glad you like it!) for reviewing!

And for everyone who favorited and followed! You all are fantastic.

~Tavina.