Naruto (Kira's Story)

***Sadness***

{With Kira}
“Y-yes?” Kira asked hesitantly.
“Are you alright?” asked the voice of Tsunami. “I heard you nearly drowned.”
The older woman’s voice sounded concerned to her ears.
“I’m fine,” she replied, walking to the door and opening it.
Tsunami stood at the door, worriedly staring down at her. Her eyes flashed about the room, taking in the wet floor and dripping clothes, before looking her over as well.
“You seem pale. Do you want me to fetch the doctor?”
“No, no, of course not. I’m fine and I’m normally pale anyway,” she insisted.
“Well, alright. If you’re sure,” she agreed reluctantly. “Your sensei is awake now by the way. The others are already with him.”
“Thank you,” she replied and slid past her out the door with Miko a step behind.
She padded silently down the hall to Kakashi’s door. Tsunami followed behind her. She could feel the woman’s eyes watching her, trying to decide if she truly was alright. Should she so much as stumble the woman would be on her like a hawk to sweep her into a bed and assault her with a barrage of doctors and medicines. She held back a shudder from the thought of doctors examining her, realizing that Tsunami would take it as a sign of chill from her dunking.
Then she was standing in front of Kakashi-sensei’s room, Tsunami only a few steps behind her. She placed her hand on the handle and tried to catch some of the conversation going on inside.
“That’s so creepy!!” came Sakura’s voice through the door.
It sounded disgusted and mildly scared.
Vaguely, she wondered what they could be talking about that would cause her to react in such a way. She opened the door and took in all the startled faces turned in her direction.
Kakashi was indeed awake. Though he wasn’t sitting up, his eye was open and he had clearly been talking to the rest of the people in the room. Right now, his eye was resting on her in mild surprise. She raised an eyebrow at his silent stare.
“What are you wearing?” he asked.
“Clothes,” she stated, folding her arms and walking further into the room to allow Tsunami entrance.
“I know that,” he said, mildly irritated. “I mean why are you wearing those clothes?”
“These?” she questioned looking down at herself. “Because my normal clothes got wet in an accident. It was either these or pajamas.”
That said, she walked past the other genin to sit against the wall, ignoring the slightly guilty looks on their faces at the mention of an accident. Kakashi looked around at them confused.
“Alright, what did I miss while I was asleep?” he questioned.
Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto squirmed in their seats and avoided looking at their sensei, embarrassed by their part in the accident. Sakura felt guilty for shocking Naruto into the water and getting Kira involved. Naruto was ashamed that he had knocked her into the water, even if it was an accident. Sasuke too battled against guilt: that he should have tried to help more.
After getting no response from three of his students, he turned his head to look at Kira. She, however, was looking out the window and refused to meet his eyes. Suddenly, he felt very tired and highly irritated.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” he asked again, emphasizing the please.
“Kira nearly drowned this morning,” Tsunami said finally in a quiet voice when no one made a move to explain.
Kakashi’s eye widened and he twisted to stare at Kira who continued to look out the window with an expressionless face.
“WHAT?!?!?!” Tazuna exclaimed loudly in disbelief.
How could one of his bodyguards nearly die from such a simple thing? He’d watched her take on and kill three of Zabuza’s doppelgangers and yet she nearly died from a little water? Such a thing seemed impossible.
“You’re joking right?” he questioned his daughter in disbelief.
She shook her head no as Kira’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
Tazuna stared openmouthed at his daughter in shock before looking at Kira.
“H-how….?” he stuttered, unsure how to take it.
“It was an accident. No one is to blame.” Kira said with finality, still looking out the window.
“You should blame me!” Naruto exclaimed suddenly.
Everybody whipped their heads around to look at him, even Kira. He met her eyes and held them.
“If I hadn’t hit you and made you fall into the water-”
“You slipped, it was an accident. I don’t blame you for it,” she interrupted.
“It’s my fault too!” Sakura joined in. “If I hadn’t startled Naruto into falling in the first place, you wouldn’t have been involved.”
“You didn’t know you’d scare him into losing his balance. It’s not your fault either,” Kira told her harshly.
“But-”
“Enough!” she cried, rising to her feet and startling them into silence. “It happened. I’m fine and nothing bad came of it. It was an accident, it’s no one’s fault, and I don’t blame anybody. Let it go!” she shouted, fighting back tears she was unwilling to let them see.
But they saw anyway, and felt guilty again for making them appear. They were amazed at her outburst. Never before had they seen so much raw emotion from her. She had always been calm, collected, and completely in control of herself—business-like—in her performance. This display of open feeling was shocking and it amazed them that there was so much pain radiating from her. It hovered like a cloud over her head and they watched, entranced, as she sat again against the wall and brought her knees to her chest to wrap her arms around them in an unconscious display of insecurity.
“You can’t swim can you, Kira?” Kakashi asked gently.
She shook her head gently, staring at her knees as Miko rubbed against her calves comfortingly. She opened her mouth and started to say something before closing it again, shaking her head once more.
“That was why you were afraid on the boat, wasn’t it?” Sasuke asked suddenly.
She and everyone else in the room turned to look at him.
“Yes,” she answered, looking away in shame. “And because of…what happened last time.”
They looked at her curiously, but she refused to meet their eyes. She chose instead to stare out the widow as the memories invaded her mind once more.
“Last time?” the cautious voice of Sakura invaded her mind, chasing the memories from the front of her mind.
“What were you talking about before I came in?” she asked, changing the subject.
Sakura looked put off by her dodging but answered her question anyway, vowing silently that she would find a way to make her answer the questions eventually no matter what.
“We were talking about that masked kid that Kakashi-sensei told us was a…shinobi hunter?” she asked to make sure.
Kakashi nodded and Sakura looked pleased with herself.
Kira looked up and stared hard at her, thinking about the implications. Sakura looked unnerved by the eeriness of that stare and shifted uncomfortably.
“That’s the same kid that carried of the body right?” Kira asked with narrowed eyes.
“Yes,” Kakashi said. He looked at her curiously, wondering what she had realized.
“Are you telling me you haven’t spotted the problem yet, Kakashi-sensei?” she asked, looking at him now.
He narrowed his eye and thought about it. “Something is definitely strange about the circumstances, but I—” he stopped suddenly as what Kira was hinting at hit home. His eye widened and he gapped, staring unseeingly at his newest student.
The other people in the room shared confused glances before looking back at them. Sasuke thought about what Kakashi had told them about hunter-nin and then Kira’s comments. Suddenly he realized what the more experienced members of his team had.
“No way!” he exclaimed, sweat beginning to run down his face.
“Yes way!” Kakashi replied, turning to look at his other students.
Naruto scratched the back of his head and Sakura looked between the three who knew in confusion. They hadn’t come to any conclusion.
“What the hell nonsense are you all mumbling on about?” Tazuna asked, clearly as lost as the other two.
“That it’s likely…” Kakashi began.
“Zabuza is still alive,” Kira and Sasuke said in unison.
They glanced at each other while Naruto, Sakura, and Tazuna freaked out and Tsunami looked confused. Since she didn’t know about any of the events on the way down here, Kira wasn’t surprised that she didn’t understand.
Kira was surprised to find that Sasuke’s eyes held a hint of fear. She didn’t think that he would have been so affected by the encounter, but then it had been the first time he’d fought a ninja he couldn’t easily dispatch. He probably wasn’t used to fighting opponents more powerful than him. She felt a curious mix of sympathy and contempt for him at that realization. He’d obviously been pampered in his training. Having practically been tortured all her life, she couldn’t compare herself to him very well. They were on two completely different levels.
She felt like him in some ways, like the loss of her family and the thirst for revenge. But at the same time, she was so different. She knew about the true strengths of the ninja in other countries. She didn’t pretend to be better than everyone else. She didn’t presume to judge other people based on their appearance or goofiness. She wasn’t stuck up so much that she wouldn’t help other people or wouldn’t accept help when it was given. She thought that he was entirely too selfish and stuck up.
“I’m going to increase your training schedule!” Kakashi stated, sitting up.
That simple statement jolted her out of her critical thoughts of the Uchiha and brought her back to the real world and the danger at hand.
“What?! Training?!” Sakura exclaimed. “But Kakashi-sensei, what will a little extra training matter with what we’re up against? Our opponent is a ninja so powerful that even with your Sharingan Mirror-Eye power, he almost killed you!” she raved, certain she’d misunderstood him.
“And when I was beleaguered, Sakura, think about who it was that rescued me. You three all are maturing, progressing rapidly, your powers growing exponentially. Especially yours, Naruto!!” he said with a smile.
Sakura grumpily looked at the smiling blonde while Sasuke looked on expressionlessly. Kira’s eyes softened but she didn’t smile, happy for the rising young ninja. She hadn’t been included because he didn’t know anything about her. Her power was almost completely unknown.
“But that being said, the skills I teach you now will be an interim thing only, to tide us over until I recover enough to take over,” he reassured her.
“But, Sensei!” she immediately protested. “Even if Zabuza is alive, how can we just train without knowing when he may return and strike again?”
Kira sighed so quietly as to go unnoticed in the noise of Kakashi’s answer at the denseness of the other kunoichi.
“An excellent question,” he responded. “But once a person has been placed into a near-death trance, it is quite some time before their body returns to its previous state of health and readiness.”
“So we’ll train while we’re waiting!!” Naruto exclaimed excitedly. “Could be fun!!”
During Naruto’s last comment, a small boy wearing overalls and a droopy striped hat had entered the room quietly.

No one had noticed the boy’s entrance except for Kira and Miko. They silently stared at each other until the boy spoke.
“You’re all going to die.”
Kira frowned at the boy’s words and tone. It was flat, depressed, and utterly devoid of hope. She understood that tone better than anyone knew. It was a constant chore to keep those feelings away from her own heart and she wondered what this boy had seen to make him this way.
“Who the hell are you?!” Naruto screamed.
“Inari!” Tazuna cried joyfully, spreading his arms wide. “Where have you been?!!”
“Welcome home, Grandpa,” he said dully, climbing up the single large stair to the carpeted floor where they sat.
He and Tazuna hugged while Tsunami walked up and began scolding him.
“Inari, greet our guests properly! They’re the esteemed ninja who brought your grandfather safely home!” she berated him with hands on her hips.
He ignored her and stared at Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto.
“But Mama, they’re all gonna die,” he told her pointing.
Naruto stood up in offense and bellowed, “Listen, you little twerp—!!”
“No one can beat Gato and his men,” he continued, ignoring Naruto.
“You brat!!” Naruto screamed in anger. “I’m a hero who’s going to be Hokage!”
Kira saw something in Inari’s face change and she stood up, causing Sasuke and Kakashi to glance at her in confusion.
“Naruto,” she said warningly in her quiet voice, trying to get him to stop.
“Gato? ‘Gateau’? This guy’s named ‘chocolate’! You can’t seriously expect me to be afraid of that!” he continued on, regardless of her warning.
“‘Hero’? You’re dumb! There’s no such thing,” Inari said bitterly.
“Wh-what?!?” Naruto yelled, angry.
“Quit it,” Kira said, shutting his mouth with her hand under his chin.
He stared at her curiously as Inari turned to the door.
“If you don’t wanna die, go home now,” he warned them.
“Where are you going, Inari?” his grandfather asked.
“To watch the ocean from my room,” he replied and walked out, slamming the door.
No one moved for several seconds. During that time, Kira felt the boy’s pain reawaken her own and struggled against it.
“Please forgive him,” Tazuna asked sadly.
Naruto growled and stomped angrily from the room after him. Kira watched him go, knowing that nothing would come of it. She could hear the boy’s sobs from here. Whatever Naruto might be, he wasn’t a brute. His heart was far too kind to let his anger take over in a situation such as this. She sighed and sat back down.
“Why did you stop him?” Sakura asked suddenly.
“Hmm?” Kira asked, turning to look at her.
“Why did you stop Naruto from talking to Inari?”
Kira turned away from her to look down at her own hands. She clenched them tightly and grimaced.
“Because,” she stated finally. “That boy has enough pain inside him without stirring it to the surface with harsh words.”
“H-how do you know that?” Sakura asked hesitantly, sensing the other girl’s slight distress.
“When you’ve seen some of the things I have, you learn to read people from only a few gestures. And then,” she said sadly. “There are always the eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul. If you learn to read them, you won’t ever have to ask how a person is feeling. You’ll know with a glance.”
Everyone stared at her.
“What sort of things?” Sakura asked timidly.
“Suffering,” she answered and shivered as if in the path of a cold wind.
The others felt chills go down their own spines at Kira’s tone of voice.
She stood suddenly and walked towards the door. “I’m going to go check my clothes. I’ll need them for training tomorrow.”
They watched her go, marveling at how her movements made no sound and wondering once again what she had endured.
{With Sakura}
“She’s so strange,” she muttered after Kira had left.
“Indeed,” Kakashi agreed.
“You think so too, Sensei?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said nodding.
“But,” she began. “Don’t you know more about her than we do?”
“I know only a few things that you do not, and they would not help you understand her any more than they help me.”
“Can’t you tell us anyway?” she begged.
“No.”
“Why not?” she whined.
“Because they are things she has asked to be kept confidential specifically. The Hokage has determined that her wishes be upheld unless it is of life or death.”
She pouted.
“But that’s not fair!”
“Life is not fair, Sakura. Now leave it be. If you wish to know, Kira will have to tell you. Or give me permission to tell you,” he added.
She frowned unhappily, but dropped it, realizing that she would get no further and asked him about the upcoming training. But of that too, he would not say and she soon left in a huff to find something else to do.