Desolation of the Caged Bird Chapter 30 - The Son of Heaven

Part II

“Akimichi Chōji.”

“Hai!”

“Namikaze Biwako.”

“Here!”

“Nara Shikamaru.”

“Hai, hai.”

“You will be known as Team 10, led by… Uchiha Itachi.”

Sitting in the classroom, he stared out the windows and idly chewed on a piece of dried seaweed Gamamomo-chan had given him that was supposed to boost the power of his ‘blood.’ He did not know if the toad had been pulling one over on him the same as she often did when he was little, but it made little difference.

Why do I even bother?

“Inuzuka Kiba.”

“Here.”

“Arf!”

“Aburame Shino.”

“In attendance.”

“Hyūga Hanabi.”

“Present.”

“You will be known as Team 8, led by Mitarashi Anko.”

He shot his gaze over to his sister. His little sister, his mind reminded him. The dried seaweed in his mouth went from bitter to sour all at once. He spat it out, cursing softly under his breath. If it weren’t for his father’s stupid policy, altering the Academy Graduation Age, changing the requirements, and putting stricter measures in place, there was no way he would be graduating with his little sister.

It was embarrassing. It was mortifying. He was the only one graduating with his little sibling. It was one thing already, having to accept the other one, but even cute little Biwako-chan, who used to sit on his lap and on his shoulders, was now catching up with him.

Of course, she’ll catch up. She has Granny Tsunade tutoring her.

Granny Tsunade didn’t like it when he called her that, but she was always going to be Granny Tsunade to him. The woman had been tutoring Biwako for years now, and she planned on grooming her as an apprentice.

No one’s offered me any apprenticeship…

No one offered him any tutelage. Whenever he went to his father to ask for lessons, the man gave him some of his old notes and insights and told him to study them, but Naruto could not make heads or tails of any of it, or understand any of it. Whenever he went back to his father to ask for explanations, the man would only say ‘you can figure it out if you give it thought’ or ‘I’m sure you can understand it on your own’ or ‘Naruto, this is something you can overcome by yourself.’ The man never gave him any direct answers or guidance.

Growing up, the meals he had with his father felt stifling and suffocating, ever since Granny Tsunade moved in. The man never used to miss dinners, but their dinners were often so quiet and formal and awkward, with his mother trying her hardest to be bubbly and bright, and his father simply smiling and nodding along, with a smile that never reached his eyes. Eventually, the first time he missed dinner, Naruto felt relieved. Then, the second time, he was confused. By the third time, he understood it would become the new normal.

The war intensified, and he was often gone for days, busy for days. On his birthday, he would only be present to cut the cake, to wish him happy birthday, to sing a song, ruffle his hair, take a slice of cake, and then he would be gone. Naruto would see him for thirty minutes, at best.

He didn’t understand why his mother never forced him to spend more time at home. She used to, long ago. There was a time she would carry about a frying pan and threaten to smack him over the head with it if he missed dinner, but that stopped, also, around the time Granny Tsunade started living with them.

Now, it was like she didn’t care that his father was always busy, or always occupied, or never at home. Sure, she was always willing to spend time with him, but it wasn’t really her. It was a Shadow Clone. It was always a Shadow Clone. If there was food, it was a Shadow Clone. If the house was clean, it was a Shadow Clone. If chores were always done, it was a Shadow Clone. His mother had so much chakra that she could use clones for everything, and she did use clones for everything.

The real her was just as busy as his father, attending functions in the village in his father’s place, attending meetings in his place, speaking with dignitaries on his behalf, giving consolations to those who lost their spouses or children in the war, standing tall, and smiling as grieving wives or mothers wept and mourned, and acting as the graceful, empathetic, perfect ‘Hokage’s Wife.’ Enough so, they started calling her the Fire Goddess.

Once, on his birthday, he couldn’t be sure if the person singing Happy Birthday to him and telling him to blow out the candles on his cake was truly his mother or yet another Shadow Clone.

Her Shadow Clones always agreed to make time for him and to train with him, but he didn’t feel like it was the same. Even if the memories would transfer to the original, he wanted to spend time with his mother, not her clones.

“Yamanaka Ino.”

“Here.”

“Uchiha Sasuke.”

“Hn.”

“Namikaze Naruto.”

The more he thought about it, the more irritated he felt. It was annoying constantly being compared to her. The Sealing Goddess, they called her, The Youngest of Konoha’s Five Goddesses, they commended her. The Second Coming of Mito, they applauded her. Hailed, worshipped, and adored, there was no one who didn’t lick the ground she walked on, and no one who didn’t bend over backwards to do what she wanted.

“Namikaze Naruto.”

She was his little sister, but she had never felt like a little sister. Ever since they were little, she wasn’t like the cute Biwako-chan who adored her big brother, who played about, made mistakes, and needed his help. She felt different; she always had an ‘I-am-better-than-you’ attitude. Her nose was always upturned in the air as though jumping in puddles, playing make-believe shinobi, being tickled, and drawing funny caricatures on their father’s face when he was sleeping, and playing pranks was something beneath her.

She treated him like a child when she was younger than him, and a child herself, and it had always grated his nerves. It was worse because she was a genius. A prodigy. The youngest ever Fūinjutsu Master in Konohagakure’s history. Even Jiraiya-jiji bent over backwards for her; even his father, who increased the graduation age, made an exception for her, and allowed her to become a kunoichi earlier than even him. If it wasn’t for that—

“Oi! Naruto!”

A rolled-up book smacked the back of his head. “Huh? Ouch!”

Iruka pinched between his brows. “Naruto, I thought you’d be excited to graduate. Even if you’re graduating in dead-last—”

“I told you those exams were rigged, ttebayo!”

“Those exams followed the equity system, Naruto. They were the opposite of rigged.”

The Equity System implemented by his father made it so no one would ‘judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.’ People like Shino or the mutt Kiba would have an exam tailored to test their skills and clan techniques in tracking others or avoiding being tracked. People like Sasuke would have an exam tailored for those eyes of his to test how well he was at using them, and people like him, because he was an Uzumaki, and part of the Uzumaki bloodline, would have to write an exam evaluating his fūinjutsu prowess.

He had below-average talent in fūinjutsu.

Jiraiya-jiji had tried to get him into it when he was younger, to mixed results. His mother also tried, tutoring him day after day with clones, but the squiggly lines always appeared like squiggly lines to him, and it was clear he had inherited his mother’s genius, or rather, her lack of it. He would need hard work to compensate.

She used to get so frustrated with him and smack him every time she trained him. She said she had to, that it was tough love, because rather he suffer a few love-bruises than accidentally kill himself by drawing a seal wrong.

She used to give it her all, but once his sister showed her own prodigious fūinjutsu talent, she stopped trying to teach him anything to do with fūinjutsu. Once Mito-chan revealed she could also use his mother’s Adamantine Chakra Chains, no one looked in his direction ever again. They joked, ‘Looks like all the Uzumaki blood went to Mito-chan.’ They told him, ‘If you don’t like fūinjutsu, you can find your own path, your own way.’

He listened to them. He believed them. 

So why did his graduation exam require him to solve fūinjutsu problems? Additive Sequence Seals of all things? How the hell was that fair?

His ninjutsu scores were perfect, his taijutsu scores were great, and his general shinobi knowledge, while not the best, was still really good. He wasn’t slow-witted or dumb by any means. Yet completely failing the fūinjutsu portion had tanked his overall scores so much it put him in dead-last. He learned then that ‘not judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree’ also meant ‘failing a fish by its inability to swim.’

Even his little sister, Biwako, while nowhere near as prodigious with fūinjutsu as Mito, was better at it than him. He never heard the end of it. His two little sisters were better at the one thing his bloodline and clan were famous for than he was, and he, the firstborn son, was trash at it.

How can someone of Uzumaki blood be bad at fūinjutsu? They mocked him. Isn’t that like an Inuzuka who rears cats?

“...You three will be known as Team 7. Your sensei is…”

Iruka paused, raising a brow.

“Hyūga Neji.”

Sasuke snapped his gaze towards their sensei, as did two other people in the room. One was Ino-chan, and the other was Hanabi. Naruto searched his memory for the name before he remembered where he’d heard it.

Academy Student at eleven months. Genin at five, Chūnin at six, Jōnin at twelve. They called him the greatest genius to exist in Konohagakure no Sato’s history, one that even his little sister couldn’t surpass or hold a candle to.

He was only a year older than him, but there were endless rumors about him. They said on the warfront, he had managed to slaughter hundreds of enemy shinobi, and he even protected an entire army with one technique, earning him the title ‘Divine Firmament.’

He’s going to be our sensei? Naruto frowned. Isn’t he always deployed on the warfront?

Naruto would be the first to admit he didn’t know much about the current war effort. News regarding the battlefield was highly controlled and restricted, and despite being the Fourth Hokage’s only son, no one told him anything about what happened. Kakashi-ni was especially tight-lipped about it; his father told him it's something to worry about once he became a Genin, Granny Tsunade would flick him away with her finger any time he tried to ask, and Jiraiya-jiji avoided the topic entirely.

All he was aware of was what he heard from the rumors, that Konoha was fighting the entire world all at once, because they were the best of the best, and the entire world was jealous of them.

One by one, Jōnin arrived to take away the people who would become their students. Naruto scratched his head and sighed. Seeing them come and go, a part of him wished Kakashi-ni had been assigned as his sensei instead, but he knew it was impossible ever since the man had been promoted to ANBU Commander. It was the same reason why the man couldn’t teach him, because he, like his father, like everyone else, was always ‘busy.’

The new ANBU that was assigned to protect the Uzumaki Clan Compound and shadow them was odd because she didn’t have an animal mask, but a completely blank one. Naruto didn’t like her. Once and only once, he had stumbled upon Granny Tsunade in the bath, and he swore she released killing intent.

A sudden gust of wind blew the door to the academy open, and a crow flew in. Sasuke perked up at the sight of it. The crow had Sharingan eyes embedded in both sockets, landed on the desk, and opened its mouth.

“Team 10. Shikamaru, Biwako, Chōji. To Training Ground 10.”

The crow disappeared in a puff of smoke immediately after.

Shikamaru sighed. “Troublesome.”

“Let’s… let’s do our best.”

“Do you have any extra snacks on you, Biwako?”

“I don’t… think so?’

“You smell like tonkotsu ramen.”

“Thank… you?”

His little sister looked in his direction, and Naruto looked elsewhere, not able to meet her gaze. It was better for her if she didn’t overly associate with him in public. He would root for her, of course, and support her from the sidelines, because that was what big brothers did. However, if he stank of shit, and she stayed close to him, she’d attract flies.

Moments after they left, the door swung open, and a pitch black fog of darkness spread into the room. There was a chill to it. Life drained from his body. He could almost feel himself aging just from being exposed to it. Panic set into his heart. He grabbed his kunai, readying himself to attack, only to stop as the fog receded, bit by bit, and gradually centered upon a person.

The clack, clack, clack of heels striking tiles was almost deafening in his ears. The scent of the earth after fresh rain, petrichor, filled the room, as did a thick coppery aroma of blood, and dust and ash and dirt.

The woman who entered wore a pitch black, fishnet-patterned kimono over a black spandex body suit that accentuated every curve and every corner. Her waist was a perfect hourglass, her chest, while not as exaggerated as Granny Tsunade's, would still give melons and cantaloupes a run for their money. Her hips swayed with every step, saliva dried in his mouth as his eyes watched the sway, and his gaze crawled upwards like a parched desert wanderer sipping water for the first time. 

With thick black lipstick, black eyeliner, darkened nails, and high heels, if the Shinigami had descended upon the land in female form, the woman before him would be the closest thing to her incarnation. The blood stopped flowing upwards and started flowing down, and he was not the only one who had that reaction.

“Team 8,” she spoke with a soft, sultry, almost hypnotic tone. “Time to go, there’s people who need killing.”

Of the Five Goddesses of Konohagakure no Sato, while his little sister had accrued fame as the ‘Sealing Goddess,’ his mother had accrued fame as the ‘Fire Goddess,’ they weren’t quite as infamous as the woman present, whose fame had arisen as a result of repeated ‘deaths.’ 

Mitarashi Anko, the ‘Death Goddess.’

That’s what pure Yin Release looks like?

The dark cloud of fog that filled the room had been the result of her mastery of Inton — Yin Release. The Nara Clan once investigated her on charges of stealing their clan’s methods, and she brazenly revealed she was a maniac who buried herself alive on a daily basis for weeks, months, and years on end. Along the way, she found she could better control Yin Chakra. Her use of Yin Release to create and control darkness was similar to, but fundamentally different from, the Nara Clan’s means of using it to control shadows, one she had learned and earned herself through repeated burials.

It was what earned her the epithet of ‘Death Goddess.’ No one in Konoha, no one alive, had probably been buried as many times as she had. There were others who tried to follow her insane training method and bury themselves alive, but failed. It led to three deaths on record, and his father classified the woman’s method she used to gain mastery of Yin Release as a Kinjutsu.

A Forbidden Technique.

Shino didn’t say a word. Kiba was too busy picking his jaw off the floor and had to be dragged along by Akamaru. Hanabi appeared immune and moved forward quickly.

The group left almost as quickly as they had arrived, and Naruto let out a breath he didn’t understand he was holding. 

She’s scary…

The only ones left were Team 7, waiting for their sensei. Beside him, Ino was biting hard into her lips, and Sasuke was staring off into the distance.

He hopped to his feet, sliding into the chair beside his crush. 

“Say, Ino-chan…”

The girl sighed and rubbed her forehead. “What is it, Naruto?”

“Hehe… I was thinking, maybe you wanted to join me for ramen later? You know, to celebrate becoming Genin?”

Yamanaka Ino. The Kunoichi of the Year. The only one his heart stirred for. Once, there had been another girl his heart stirred for, a girl with pink hair, who was also Ino’s friend. He heard that her father died as a result of the war, and her mother had withdrawn her from the academy. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since.

She wasn’t the only one. A lot of civilians withdrew their children from the Academy as the war intensified, and day by day, attendance numbers were declining. Some clans had begun marrying outsiders to ensure their numbers didn’t decline.

“There’s nothing to celebrate.”

Ino shot him a glare.

“Some of us need to train, Naruto.”

“We can train together! I could… uh… help you with your techniques?”

“You? You’re the dead last—”

“I’m telling you it’s because the exams were rigged, damn it!” He swore. “If there wasn’t that stupid fūinjutsu part—”

Sasuke snorted. “Blaming others for your own shortcomings is just pathetic.”

Naruto rounded on the boy. “Oi, teme, you trying to start something?”

“If you’re bad at something, admit that you’re bad at it and strive to improve,” Sasuke said, not looking at him. “Complaining that it isn’t fair that you’re bad is just a worthless excuse.”

Naruto bit the inside of his cheek. His temper bubbled over. Easy for you to say, he wanted to bite out. Do you have any idea how hard I work?

Every month, every week, every day, he strived to improve his fūinjutsu. Every single waking hour, he saw fūinjutsu, before he went to bed, and the first thing when he woke up. Despite that, he could never surpass his little sister in the art. Hours of effort, sweat, and tears, he would spend, striving to solve what he considered to be the most difficult problems, and she would come along, give it a single look, and point out all his errors as though his effort was meaningless.

Things he struggled to understand when he was ten, his little sister could do when she was three. Things he still couldn’t grasp when he was twelve, she had already mastered when she was four.

There was no other justification for the sheer difference in talent beyond the fact that the world was fundamentally unfair. His sister was born with immense talent, and he was not. They had the same parents, the same blood, but sometimes, seeing his blond hair rather than her red, there were days he believed those whispers, those insidious whispers, those ‘jokes’ that he was adopted, and she was the true firstborn child.

“Shut it, teme! You don’t know the first thing about fūinjutsu! You’re just someone who gets by on your clan’s bullshit eyes!”

Sasuke snapped his gaze to him. “I don’t need the Sharingan to see that the apple fell far from the tree.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re not even half the person your father is.”

The words were like a bucket of cold water pouring down on him.

He lunged, almost instinctively. He couldn’t help it. He had always been hot-headed and knuckleheaded, and Jiraiya-jiji laughed and said it meant that he took after his mother. When he was younger, they said he was truly his mother’s son. After Mito-chan displayed her calm, collected demeanor, after she displayed her genius, a genius that rivaled that of his father, everyone said she had inherited the best parts of his father’s genes. 

They said it was funny, how she looked like his mother, but took after his father, and how he looked like his father, but took after his mother.

However, as Mito surpassed him, further and further, those joking whispers became more frequent. ‘It’s a good thing you have Minato’s eyes and hair, Naruto!’ they’d tell him. ‘If not that you look exactly like him, no one would believe you’re his son!’ they would jibe him.

As if it was all in good jest, as if those words didn’t cut deep.

He lunged without thinking, his fist soaring forward. Sasuke’s cheat-like eyes came to life, and he extended a hand and caught the punch. He gritted his teeth, spinning with the momentum and kicking out with his right leg, but the other boy’s hand went out and caught him by the ankle before flinging him away.

He landed on one of the desks and ground his teeth hard.

Those eyes… that damned Sharingan…

Again and again, geniuses had special privileges given to them at birth.

It’s not fair, damn it.

“You rely on those stupid eyes so much, fight me without them if you’re a real man!”

Sasuke frowned. “Are you an idiot?”

“So you admit you wouldn’t be anything without them,” he grinned. “Heh. No wonder so many of you keep vanishing. Guess the Uchiha really aren’t all that without their eyes.”

Sasuke’s back straightened. The boy shot him a murderous glare.

It was a not-so-open secret, even to people who weren’t aware of much about the war, that Uchiha Clan members kept going MIA. They would be assigned missions, and simply vanish, as if they were abducted by a ghost, with no traces to be found of them ever again, not their corpses, nor their bodies, nor their equipment.

Some theorized that the Uchiha were using this method to slowly ‘leave’ the village, and accused them of desertion. That they were gathering their numbers to escape Konoha because they were afraid of its destruction.

“You require a beating, fool.”

“Bring it, bastard!”

Sasuke lunged forward. Naruto grinned. He gathered his chakra into his palm, remembering the brief lessons he got from Jiraiya-jiji, spinning and molding it—

He found himself unable to move his body. Stuck in place. Opposite him, Sasuke, too, was frozen.

W—what the?

His head turned, against its will, to Ino, whose hands were in a familiar handseal.

Sasuke muttered, “Mind Body Disturbance Technique?”

“I don’t care if the two of you want to beat each other senseless,” Ino scowled. “Do it after we meet our sensei. My teammates looking like idiots is going to give a bad first impression of me, too. I worked too hard to get here to allow you both to ruin it.”

Naruto scowled. His body returned to his control. He opened his lips, ready to complain—

“First impressions indeed matter.”

A voice stopped him cold.

A shudder ran through his body. He was not the only one. Ino went stiff, and Sasuke’s eyes went wide.

There was someone dressed in a long flowing white robe, casually sitting in the back of the classroom, with his eyes closed. A pure white Jōnin flak jacket was worn atop it, and his hair fell behind the back of his head in a long, inky waterfall. His face was sharp and angular, more than enough to be considered a ‘pretty-boy’, but also, if he was, then he was amongst the ‘prettiest’ pretty-boys Naruto had ever seen.

There was a strange, unearthly presence to him. A strange charisma to him. The light hit him at the right angles, the air around him was almost still and motionless, and he, without looking at them, with his eyes closed, had a tranquility and stillness that Naruto had only ever seen from one person, from Jiraiya-jiji, when he demonstrated his ‘Sage Mode.’  

Could it be?

Naruto was at least fifty percent certain.

He knows Senjutsu.

That instantly made him wary. It made him cautious. Jiraiya-jiji said Senjutsu was his greatest trump card. He said a Complete Sage could never be defeated by another shinobi who was also not a Complete Sage, barring extreme exceptions and rare edge cases. 

When did he get here?

None of them had noticed when he arrived, and none of them had noticed his presence until he spoke. That made sweat drip slowly from Naruto’s brow. He thought his skill as a Sensor was passable, at least, he could always detect the ANBU Guards around him, ever since he was little. Despite that, he hadn’t noticed a single thing amiss. 

Dangerous.

All his instincts were screaming to him that boy, no, the man in front of him was dangerous. They were telling him not to offend him and not to earn his ire. Unconsciously, he swallowed. He turned to look at Sasuke, pondering if he too would also—

Sasuke’s eyes lit up in clear recognition. “Neji-ni-san!”

Naruto’s mind went blank.

Huh? Ni-san?

Sasuke rushed forward, bowing with such deference that Naruto almost wanted to believe he had been replaced with an impostor. His eyes, which were always bored and listless in class, shone brightly and looked at the stranger with adoration.

What? How…?

“I will make this clear,” with his eyes still closed, he slowly patted Sasuke on the head. “I only had the intention of taking Sasuke-kun as my disciple. It was the Hokage who decided to saddle me with a complete team.”

What? Naruto bit his lip. “Him? Why? What does the teme have that we don’t?”

Ino was the one who answered him, whispering. “As a Genin, Hyūga Neji’s teammate was Sasuke’s older brother. They say they’re still very close.”

Sasuke's older brother…?

“How the hell is that fair?” he grumbled back to her. “He gets special treatment because of who he’s related to?”

Ino gave him an odd look. “I don’t think you’re in any position to complain about that, yourself, Son of the Fourth Hokage.”

“T-that’s different, ttebayo!”

She scoffed. “Of course it is.”

It was! His father didn’t train him! He never had time to train him or teach him anything! He just tossed a bunch of notes and told him to study them! Only Jiraiya-jiji, when he was free, and the toads of Mount Myōboku, when they lingered about the Uzumaki Clan Compound. And maybe Kakashi-ni, when he had time, alongside his mother’s Shadow Clones and Granny Tsunade with her love taps, but that was it!

He didn’t get any special treatment from being the Hokage’s son at all!

He chewed the inside of his lip as he stared at his new ‘sensei.’ Already, Naruto didn’t like him. He was a Hyūga, but his eyes were closed at all times as if he were blind. He was handsome too, so much that it annoyed him. He shot a glance at Ino and felt glad that at least she wasn’t fawning over his looks. Instead, she was glaring at him as if he had kicked her puppy.

Does Ino-chan… not like him either? 

He was aware that Ino-chan was obsessed with becoming a strong kunoichi because of her clan, but he didn’t know why that was.

“The Hokage has given me the freedom to test you three however I wish. If I am dissatisfied, none of you will be allowed to graduate.”

What?

Naruto’s back was slick with sweat.

“No way! He’d never—”

“We are at war,” he was cut off. “We do not need those who will be a hindrance to others on the battlefield.”

Naruto swallowed his words.

“Your first test is simple. Meet me at Training Ground 44.”

Hyūga Neji’s form wavered and dispersed, as though it were an illusion. Naruto stared in disbelief, and not only he, even Sasuke and Ino-chan didn’t believe it.

Since when does a Hyūga use Genjutsu?!

The illusory face provided a chilling smile.

“You have five minutes.”

And it vanished.

Damn it!

Team 7 burst into action.