In which Kakashi sees Sasuke in a new way and gives him a rather different lecture after his fight with Naruto on the hospital roof.
A flash of familiar exasperation tightened Kakashi’s mouth behind his mask, but he didn’t think an admonition to grow up already would go over very well right now. Not right after Sasuke had faced his brother and been reminded of that bloody night all over again.
In which Team Seven is on the road again, putting out fires for Konoha in the wake of the invasion and learning a little more about each other and themselves.
Sasuke was a lot more himself now they were out on missions again, all about training and getting stronger. That was the kind of thing Naruto understood, that was the kind of attitude he could get behind, because it meant they could all train together, and sometimes he could show Sasuke up, which made it a lot easier to take the times Sasuke showed him up. Though he wasn’t completely sure Sasuke understood about that, and sometimes he got all brooding and shit, and then Naruto had to do Sexy no Jutsu at him to make him stop, and nearly getting a Chidori shoved up his nose was totally worth the look on Sasuke’s face.
In which the Chuunin Exam seems to be a lot easier this time around.
“The second part is a simulation of a nighttime raid,” a tall Sand-nin explained to all the first round survivors. “Your objective is at the center of the test area; you are required to get in, find the scroll that matches the chakra imprint of the one given to your team, and get back to your starting point. The objective will be guarded by chuunin of at least two years seniority. If you encounter other teams, you may ignore them, assist them, or hinder them.”
The three of them looked at each other. Naruto was grinning like the idiot he usually was, and even Sakura looked like she was trying not to laugh. Sasuke snorted and voiced the thought for all of them. “Easy win.”
In which the exam tournament gives everyone a chance to grow a little and tie up some loose ends.
Sakura didn’t often indulge in appreciating an opponent’s skill; in fact, she’d previously considered that a symptom of testosterone poisoning. But now she found herself grinning as her thoughts flashed faster and her hands came together in the Ram. Fuunotora fought with her brains, and that Sakura could appreciate.
In which Naruto learns healing, Sasuke has Jiraiya inflicted upon him, and Sakura gets more dangerous.
“Myouboku Mountain’s Monk of the Toad Spirits… also known as the Toad Sage…. is here!” A long white tail of hair flounced and wood geta managed to hit the dust with a firm clack.
“You’re what,” Sasuke said, very flatly. It wasn’t even a question. There was no possible question in the world to which that was the answer.
In which Seven is back together only to split up again when Sakura volunteers to go undercover with Orochimaru.
Sakura closed her eyes and reached for the place she kept the things she didn’t let out. Anger, mostly, the part of her that wanted to crush things into nothing or rip them into shreds. She thought about all the passing flashes of resentment, when Naruto and Sasuke both got extra training and she didn’t; when Sasuke executed the techniques her research turned up, the ones she just didn’t have the chakra capacity to perform; when Naruto effortlessly made Sasuke respond to him; when people murmured about the success record of their team and never once mentioned her; when her parents cheerfully assumed that she was doing filing for the Intelligence center, and she was forbidden to correct them.
She unlocked the cave she kept all that in, all the curses and spitting rage and pure, unadorned selfishness, and she opened her eyes and looked at the world through spite.
Takes place during Chapter Seven of Half Without Another One. While Sakura is gone her boys fret and try to distract themselves and take care of each other.
The third time Naruto blew up his study room trying to separate out the fox’s chakra from his own once he’d already expressed them, Tsunade didn’t even yell. She just gave him a narrow look, hands planted on her hips, and called for Iruka-sensei.
Kakashi achieves the Mangekyou Sharingan, turning to his past to do it. His past visits him while he recovers. Takes place just after Chapter Seven of Half Without Another One and "And We’ll Laugh About It".
The Sharingan’s greatest single use to him was not expanded perception, or the ability to copy others’ techniques, or even intimidation value. It’s greatest use was as camouflage. No one had to wonder why the man with a thousand jutsu kept winning; the answer was self evident.
It was also wrong.
Sakura and Orochimaru conclude their bargain, and their betrayal. Sasuke and Naruto do their best to catch Sakura as she falls out of this mission. Character death.
“Good,” Orochimaru purred, eyes alight, and Sakura knew her own were glittering back at him. She could feel the air on her bared teeth. She loved this, that he would expect her, prefer her to attack him from behind, to test him exactly the way he tested her.
Sakura has to debrief and deal with the backlash of her time at Orochimaru’s side. Fortunately, Naruto and Sasuke are there for her. Once that settles, though, Tsunade has to deal with the resistance of the Elders to promoting the three of them.
“He didn’t call me by name, for a long time. It was always ‘kunoichi’. But when…” she had to swallow, “when I demanded more tests on the last version of the seal, more tests on other people, because I knew it would give me more time to gather intelligence on the bases, then he called me by name.”
“And if he thought all along you were a plant,” Miuhara completed her logic coolly, “it follows that he was seeking to draw you into just that position, where you would be complicit with his atrocities. And he rewarded you for it.”
“Yes,” Sakura whispered, arms curling tighter. “And it worked.”
In which Gaara is taken by Akatsuki and Kakashi’s and Gai’s teams are sent to aid Hidden Sand to get him back.
Sasuke gave up on logic, as he so often had to around Naruto and just shook him. “Shut up and listen to me,” he said, low and deadly. “I am not letting you run yourself right into ambush. Understand? Not by those bastards and not because you were too unbelievably bullheaded to Stay. With. Your team!” Three more hard shakes punctuated that, and Naruto finally blinked at Sasuke like he knew who was in front of him.
Sasuke faces his brother again. Fortunately, Sakura and Naruto are there for him, and he finds the space in his head to do what he has to do. Involves character death.
Sakura gripped his shoulder hard. "Are you all right?" she asked, low. Sasuke took a slow breath and yanked his thoughts back into order. Naruto was going after Gaara’s body, and Kakashi would take care of him. The Sand teams probably had Sasori in hand. He was here, with Sakura and Gai’s team, and Itachi was in front of them. He had backup, today, to go with opportunity, and his brother was standing in front of him. Now. The time to take Itachi down was now. That was all he needed to think about.
Gaara is revived, and Naruto and Sakura take Sasuke home to recover.
Sasuke didn’t know what he wanted to say until he heard the words, “I really loved my brother,” coming out of his mouth. Sakura took in a quick breath at that and wrapped her arms around him. Sasuke was glad for that; it kept the shaking in his stomach from taking his whole body. “I loved him,” he said again, slowly, painfully. “And then he turned into… that.”
The larger ninja world starts talking about Akatsuki, and what to do about them. Naruto is hustled off to the Island Turtle with his team, where he meets B and reaches a certain cooperation with the Nine-tails.
Warning: Features a brief section of suicidal thoughts.
Kakashi slid past the Hokage’s door rather warily and waved a handful of message-paper strips at her. “Latest batch from the relays; Shizune asked me to bring them up with me.” He swapped himself reflexively with the coat hanger as a cup went hurtling past where his head would have been and smashed into shrapnel against the wall. “I can see why she did,” he added.
Naruto is figuring out how to work with the Nine-tails, but Akatsuki is getting bolder. Shikamaru brings them word of the attack on Fire Country and when the new Akatsuki team finds the Island Turtle Jiraiya is the next to pay for facing them.
Naruto sighed. “Nine-tails keeps glaring at you; it’s distracting. Though it is kind of funny when you both get pissy about my technique and he gets all pained about having to agree with an Uchiha,” he added reflectively.
Naruto and his yearmates face Nagato, who seems unbeatable until Naruto negotiates again with the Nine-tails and releases part of his seal.
“Whatever peace you may have made with your beast does not change the actions of your village,” the man said in a weirdly classroom-lecture kind of tone. “They sacrificed a newborn to make a weapon of the land’s spirit and further sacrificed your life every day after that to their own fears. Is that not so?”
In the aftermath of the attack, Naruto talks with the Nine-tails, Sasuke frets over Jiraiya, and Jiraiya has to deal with Nagato and Konan (kleenex advisory).
Naruto scowled, folding his arms stubbornly. “It’s not right! It’s not right to keep your chakra unbalanced like that! I don’t care how important it was to stop you then, it isn’t right!” He set his jaw. “I’ll convince her.”
After a moment, the fox snorted and settled back down beside him. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”
Naruto grinned a little and leaned against his shoulder, ignoring the growl he got for that. “Good. You’re learning.”
Most of the Konoha contingent ingathers to deal with Sai’s attack on Naruto and its implications. In the wake of this, Naruto proposes his new plan to Tsunade.
The only reason Sakura didn’t kill Sai immediately was that Ino got in her way.
Sasuke attends his first Council, called to deal with Danzou’s actions, while Naruto and Sakura figure out how to heal the Nine-tails. That second turns out to have risks none of them quite realized before-hand.
Under other circumstances, he might have enjoyed being here, his first Council as the acknowledged head of Uchiha. But he didn’t want to be here today, looking at that smug bastard Danzou across the table. He wanted to be with his team, helping Sakura and Naruto research what it was already self-evident would be a dangerous procedure. And making sure no one made another try at Naruto.
If there was one thing he’d learned as a child, though, it was his duty as a son of Uchiha, so here he was. Not killing Danzou even a little, either; he hoped everyone appreciated his restraint.
Kakashi takes Sai under his wing and Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura help Sai start to find his emotional feet. Just in time for Madara to make his move on Konoha.
“Shinobi are the weapons of their villages. Their nations. Their employers. True enough. But a shinobi without the will to evaluate orders, and even modify them if field conditions demand it, is a blade without a sheath. And members of ANBU are ground to a sharper edge than any others. That’s what you’ve been waving around your own village, Danzou.”
Madara attacks Konoha with the aid of Zetsu and Danzou. Foxes, demons, dragons, tailed beasts, generations old grudge matches, and other kinds of hell break loose.
Alarms were ringing through Konoha’s night, hurrying the civilians to the shelters, raising the lights in the village center, calling the close patrols in to defend their homes. Shinobi of the village ran to guard the wall and ranged through the training grounds beyond, searching for the attackers.
The shinobi world starts to settle down again and reach for new equilibrium, and our heroes all get on with their lives.
“What’s so surprising?” Jiraiya asked, brows arched. “You’re the student of my student. That makes you my grand-student, so it’s part of my job to look out for you.” While Kakashi was blinking at this line of logic, he rubbed his chin. “Hmm. You’re also Sasuke’s teacher, so you’re my teacher-in-law also. Two significant bonds! I don’t see what you’re startled by.”
Hinata has long been inspired by Naruto, and watching his determination helps her find her own. Seeking a way to help her clan and herself, she turns to Hyuuga’s history and finds old strength and new thoughts there, courage and hope. In the end, she even finds her way back to an older love.
When Hinata was fourteen, she gathered all her courage in her hands and walked into the training hall while Neji-niisan was working, and asked to train with him. Quietly, face shadowed by the wooden slats of the window, he agreed.
That was the year she began to wonder whether she could change fate, too.
Shamelessly anachronistic clubbing fic. Neji and Hinata out dancing. Or sparring. It’s a little hard to tell which. Set just after the end of "Cloud Hands".
Sparring could be a lot like sex, for some shinobi. And there was no question that most ninja out dancing were more or less sparring to a beat. But this was the first time Sakura had ever seen two people dancing, sparring, or having sex so intensely without ever touching.
This is the story otherwise known as "The Role of the Sharingan in Sex and Endogamous Bonding and Incidentally Kakashi’s Massive Control Issues". I’m really not sure I can summarize it better than that. Written for the Porn Battle prompt: Kakashi/Sasuke, teacher.
Warning: clan endogamy may result in incest-y vibes for some.
Every time he bowed at just that angle that said he was a son of the senior branch; every time one of the Yasumori unthinkingly cleared the way for him in response; every time he recognized the tiny grimace that said Yasumori Koujirou really wanted to disagree with Yasumori Michiru no matter what their clan head had told them about solidarity in front of outsiders; every time he saw those things and looked by reflex for familiar eyes, eyes like his, and found only the green and hazel of Yasumori, it hurt.