#I ain't been dropping no eaves sir

[setaripendragon]

Familiar Strangers - Six: Genma

One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten Bonus scenes: Five-Point-Five - Seven-Point-Five Okay, this is the part I’ve been looking forward to since I started this self-indulgent story of mine. (-whispers- The Life and Times of a Shinobi Den Mother by @blackkatmagic has absolutely nothing to do with how much I adore Genma. Nup, not a thing. -shifty eyes-)

The first sign Genma got that something was wrong was the two sets of shoes sitting innocently in his front hall. He stopped on the threshold, staring at the footwear. Almost all of his friends wore the standard blue shinobi sandals, not kunoichi heels or black shinobi boots. But what sort of intruder just left their shoes in the hall like a guest?

The second sign he got was the sound of unfamiliar voices coming from his living room. They were quiet enough that he had to strain to pick out the words, but they weren’t trying to hide their presence. So Genma did what any good shinobi would do. He shut the front door silently, then leaned back against it to listen in.

“-wrong. The world cannot change this much in the space of one day.” Female, young, probably a teenager, by Genma’s best guess. She would be the owner of the kunoichi heels, most likely, although girls her age didn’t tend to go for them, as they were favoured by village-bound and retired kunoichi. Pride usually stopped the young, up-and-coming, active kunoichi from wearing them. And this one sounded like she had a lot of pride. She sounded controlled and in control, in a way that suggested there was a lot of anger she very carefully wasn’t showing. “Dead clans and people going rogue and a different Hokage don’t just happen overnight. So someone did something to make the world this messed up, and when I find them, they’re going to bleed until they fix it, and then they’re going to burn.”

Well, Genma thought through the alarm bells suddenly making a racket in the back of his mind, this is one very dangerous kunoichi. She had delivered the threat – the promise – with a quiet, cold certainty that usually characterised the torture half of Torture and Interrogations. She had experience in making people hurt, and she was more than willing use those skills if she needed to.

“Seconded.” Male, also teenaged, with a quiet, rich voice with the careful pronunciation that Genma associated with Elders and the more insular and proud Clans. He also sounded darkly amused by his ally’s bloodlust, which wasn’t encouraging.

“Okay-” A third voice, which startled Genma, but he catalogued and assessed it just like he had the others. “-but who did what, and why?” Male, teenaged, boisterous even in his exasperation with his allies. He sounded familiar to Genma, although he couldn’t place him. “More importantly, how do we find them in order to make them fix it?”

A pause, and then the girl spoke again. “We need to assess the events leading up to the attack.” She said, brisk and matter-of-fact, her anger almost inaudible under her professionalism. “What was everyone doing before we woke up in that ruined lab? I was on shift in T&I, working wet to Ino’s dry on an Iwa-nin Kotetsu-san caught.” Genma stiffened slightly. He might not be particularly familiar with Konoha’s up-and-coming teenage ninja, but he at least recognised the name of the Yamanaka princess. He also didn’t think Inoichi would let his sixteen year old daughter take point in a wet-and-dry interrogation. Yamanaka or not, that required keeping a straight face and a mild tone while your partner pulled apart a human body right in front of you. “Anko-senpai was there, too, to spot us.” Well, at least T&I hadn’t let two teenaged girls run an interrogation by themselves, although leaving Mitarashi Anko in charge of them wasn’t what Genma would have done. That was, he admitted to himself, probably why he wasn’t working in T&I.

“Training.” The eerily familiar boy interjected, with an oddly rueful sort of cheer. “Me and Gaara wanted to see if we could use the shared mindscape under battle conditions, so Kaka-nii and Tobi-nii were kicking the crap out of us on… Training Ground Seventeen, I think? The one with all the big rocks.” Genma closed his eyes for a moment, because unknown people dropping the Kazekage’s name so easily was unnerving, but it also put the voice into context. Uzumaki Naruto, which meant that the girl was probably Haruno Sakura and the other boy… Genma didn’t want to think that Uchiha Sasuke was sitting in his living room, but he couldn’t think of anyone else that fit. All of that put together meant that ‘Kaka-nii’ was probably Hatake Kakashi.

Genma knew, though, that Naruto was not that familiar with his jounin-sensei. He wasn’t that familiar with Iruka, who was like an older brother to him. Just like he knew the Kazekage was not in Konoha, and had not been training with any of Konoha’s ninja in the last few days. Just like he was pretty damn sure Yamanaka Ino wasn’t experienced enough to lead interrogations, Sakura didn’t work for T&I, and wasn’t any sort of torture expert.

He was drawn out of his spiralling thoughts by Sasuke’s voice. “I was meeting with Hinata at the White Lotus to discuss the possibility of trying for ANBU.” The missing nin declared simply. Genma allowed his jaw to go slack, because no one was watching. The idea of Uchiha Sasuke in ANBU was mildly terrifying, given what Genma knew of the boy’s anger issues and suicidal streak. The idea that Uchiha Sasuke thought that Hyuuga Hinata had the skills, never mind the temperament, for ANBU work was even more scary.

None of what these three were saying matched up with the world. Which was, Genma acknowledged, exactly what they’d been discussing. “And then there was that strange explosion.” Sakura concluded, with a quick check of “For all of us?” tacked on at the end. There were no verbal answers, but the boys must have given affirmative ones, because Sakura went on without hesitation to say, “And then we were waking up in that wrecked lab.”

“Could your, hm, interviewee have done something?” Sasuke asked.

Sakura made a frustrated yet thoughtful sound. “We had him pretty tightly locked down, but he might have had a seal primed to activate at a certain threshold of pain or bloodloss.” She acknowledged, but even to Genma’s ear she didn’t sound convinced. “We do check people pretty thoroughly – standard procedure since the Kannabi Bridge debacle – but no security is impregnable.”

The fact that Sakura appeared to know about the Kannabi Bridge mission was another thing that didn’t fit. The only reason Genma knew about it in any specific detail was because Gai had fretted about his Eternal Rival for weeks afterwards. And as far as Genma knew, while it had been something of a mess, it had been completed successfully, and hadn’t had anything much to do with seals or sealing techniques.

“That wouldn’t explain the two of us though.” Naruto pointed out. “If it was a seal, it would have to have the anchor at the lab, as a landing point, you know? And someone would have had to smack a target seal on all three of us. Something that would seal us into whatever protections they’d set up against what they were doing, and then the anchor to spit is back out once the conditions were met.” He paused, and out in the hall Genma tried not to get swamped by painful nostalgia. Naruto sounded so much like his mother used to when she debated seals with Minato-sama, and it ached somewhere deep inside. “That could have been done anywhere, any time. As long as we didn’t notice the target seals, it wouldn’t necessarily affect us until the main seal was activated.”

“Employees get checked just as thoroughly as prisoners for seals.” Sakura retorted, sounding frustrated. “Anything that could have just been smacked on me in passing would have been picked up by the scan when I went in to work. No, I don’t think it could have been a seal, which means those bastards probably got their hands on our blood somehow. Hair’s easier to get a hold of, but I think something this big would have needed blood to get a proper lock on us. Like the Edo Tensei.”

Blood jutsu and one of the creepiest forbidden techniques Genma had ever come across. These three might still be kids, but they were legitimately terrifying, he thought wryly. Of course, the Team Seven Genma had heard stories about were terrifying in their own way, but this was on a different level. Those kids might be power-houses, but they were not all that well versed in a shinobi’s real work. These three were discussing most of the darker aspects that made up the bulk of shinobi work like they were discussing the weather.

“But why?” Naruto burst out suddenly. “Why would they target us?”

“Would you like that list alphabetically or chronologically?” Sasuke drawled.

“Very funny, bastard.” Naruto grumbled, but he didn’t refute the implication that this team had pissed off a lot of people. Which only cemented Genma’s conviction that this version of Team Seven was a lot more experienced than the one he was familiar with. “I mean,” Naruto went on to insist, “if they were trying to get at us, why exclude us from whatever they did? Why do something to change the whole damn world and pick on us three to be the ones that didn’t get hit?”

“Us three and whoever did this.” Sakura pointed out. “What better way to disorient and distract than by twisting our home and our families into something wrong? We’re vulnerable right now, with no allies, no back-up, in hostile territory, and with nowhere to retreat to.”

Which was an excellent point, Genma acknowledged to himself, but he was looking at a different angle and wondering if the culprit hadn’t had a slightly different objective in mind. Given everything they’d said, he would bet good money that these three weren’t the targets, they were just collateral damage.

“Deep cover mission protocols, then?” Sasuke asked, tone grim and determined.

Naruto, surprisingly, laughed. “If this is hostile territory, we probably shouldn’t have broken into Genma-sensei’s apartment. Just a thought.” He pointed out, with a nonchalant air of mischief better suited to a cat that had just pushed something fragile and valuable off a table. Genma’s eyebrows shot up, intrigued despite himself, and he pushed away from the front door.

If they were his students, in whatever shape or form, he wasn’t going to leave them in hot water like this without a little bit of help. So he sauntered into the archway between the little front hall and the living room and paused to take in the scene. The three young shinobi noticed him, of course they did, and went stiff. They were all three of them squished onto the couch, with Sasuke in the middle, katana peeking up over his shoulder and wakizashi laid across his lap, dressed from head to toe in black, save for a midnight blue haramaki around his middle, Naruto on the left in his usual eye-searing orange and bandages around his feet – which explained the lack of a third set of shoes, Genma noted – and Sakura on the right, looking at first glance like a harmless civilian in muted earthy shades of red. Genma’s experienced eye picked out the subtle wrongness in the way her dress was hanging, and realised she must have a small armoury’s worth of senbon hidden in her seams.

I must have taught her that, he realised, bemused and proud all at once. None of the three kids moved, watching him warily to see if he was going to attack. Instead, he braced his shoulder against the jamb, folded his arms casually, and clicked the senbon in his mouth against his teeth. “Sensei?” He echoed curiously, keeping his voice light and mild, and projecting not-a-threat as much as he could without it seeming too suspicious.

The three of them all exchanged looks, then nodded carefully, watching him closely for his reaction. “Yeah.” Naruto said. “At least, that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

He sounded so disgruntled that Genma wanted to laugh. Instead, he just shrugged his free shoulder and quirked an eyebrow at them. They’d thrown some good theories around, but they’d been too focused on the idea of the world being twisted around them, because that was what they could see. Yeah, they’re definitely still kids, well-trained or not, Genma thought. They’d grow out of thinking so subjectively in a few years, give or take a decade. “Where you come from.” He agreed, pointedly, waiting to see if they’d catch up with his train of thought.

Slowly, realisation dawned in Sasuke’s dark eyes. “You’re thinking alternate dimensions?”

Genma smiled around his senbon. Good job, other-me, you should be damn proud of these kids, he thought, feeling inexplicably damn proud of these kids himself. “Seems the most reasonable explanation to me. I figure it’d be a lot easier to try and fling someone out of their dimension than try to rearrange an entire reality.”

“Oh.” Sakura breathed, closing her eyes on the revelation and knocking her knuckles against her forehead in frustration. “We weren’t the targets at all, were we? It was these other versions of us. They were the ones all grouped together, in the lab of a highly dangerous and inventive missing nin, with two ANBU, one of whom was there specifically to keep an eye on Kurama.”

Genma hadn’t known that Team Seven was off investigating Orochimaru again, but it made sense, so he nodded. There was one thing, though, that he wanted clarifying. “Kurama?”

“You don’t-? Oh, right, you’re not our sensei here.” Naruto realised, speaking aloud even though he clearly wasn’t talking to any of them. “The kyuubi. His name’s Kurama.”

It took effort not to swallow his senbon. Carefully, Genma plucked it from between his teeth before he could accidentally stab himself in the throat with it. “You’re- you’re on first name terms with the nine-tailed demon fox?” He asked, as calmly as he was able to.

Naruto blinked, then scowled at him with a startling level of resentment. “Yes.” He snarled.

Without looking at him, Sakura reached over and put a hand on Naruto’s knee. She caught Genma’s gaze and held it steadily. “What Naruto means to say is; Kurama is more than just a demon fox, Genma-sensei. He might be a manifestation of chakra, he might not be human, but he is a person. He’s also the first friend Naruto ever really made, has saved Naruto’s life more times than we can count, and is one of the only real connections he has to his mother.”

Because Kushina had been the kyuubi jinchuuriki before him. Right. “That… seems like a very twisted connection.” He pointed out weakly.

Naruto crossed his arms with a harrumph. “Kurama didn’t like her very much, but would you like the person who stuffed you into a box smaller than you are and threw away the key? He respected her though, and that’s important. He’s the only reason I managed to figure out even the basics of Kaasan’s chakra chains.”

All of the words made sense, but Genma was having a hard time wrestling with his emotional response. The kyuubi had killed Minato-sama, and that was a wound Genma was still working on healing. But he wasn’t going to argue with a defensive jinchuuriki about how evil or not the demon inside him was. That was just asking for disaster. “Your entire world is going to give me a headache, isn’t it?” He asked, aiming for humour and only falling a little bit short.

The three kids eyed him, and then he found himself confronted with one tiny smirk, one sly side-ways smile, and one vicious fanged grin. “Itachi-san runs a tea shop.” Sakura told him, sweet as honey. Genma found he couldn’t do much besides stare at her.

Naruto laughed, bright and wicked, slumping into Sasuke who made a show of trying to shrug him off, but never seriously tried to dislodge him. Carefully, Genma turned that piece of information over in his mind, trying to figure out how it made any sense at all. “A tea shop?” He checked, just to make sure he’d heard that right.

“Yes.” Sasuke confirmed, and there was something brittle in his tone. “The White Lotus. It’s very popular.”

That name triggered Genma’s memory, and he traced it back to the earlier conversation. “That’s where you were, before…” He trailed off, oblivious to Sasuke’s nod, because he was picturing that scene, Sasuke at a table with Hinata, being served tea by Itachi, when, all of a sudden… “Oh, hell.”

“What?” Naruto demanded.

Genma grimaced. “If you three ended up here, that means that our Team Seven ended up there.” He pointed out, and waited for them to connect the dots.

Sasuke got there first. His eyes widened and his face drained of all colour. “Other-me is going to try and kill Itachi-niisan. He’s- he’s a civilian now, and he’s not even going to see it coming!” He pressed a hand over his eyes for a moment, then lowered it. Now, instead of panic, there was a hard, steely resolve. “We need to get back. As soon as possible. We’ve already wasted enough time.”

Genma nodded. “I think the fastest way to get you home would be to talk to the Hokage. She ought to know about this, and she’ll know what resources to pull on to get you home quickly.”

“Okay.” Sakura agreed, getting to her feet. “Just remember, Sasuke, that Itachi was an ANBU Captain. I’m sure he’ll be okay, even if he is a little rusty.”

“Yeah!” Naruto agreed, bouncing upright as well. “He’ll be fine. And even if he isn’t, Hinata’s there! And she’s nice, she has to be to like a bastard like you, so she’ll make sure Itachi’s safe, believe it.” He declared brightly.

Sasuke rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue. He looked a little calmer, too. “You guys should go on ahead, I’ll follow where I won’t be seen.” He paused to shoot a wry look at Genma, who raised an amused eyebrow right back. “Since I’m apparently a missing nin in this world.”

“Hey, whoa, no!” Naruto protested. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Sasuke scowled at him. “I’m not fragile, Naruto-!”

“No, but we’re all pretty messed up right now.” Sakura interjected before the two boys could get into a fight. “I think Naruto’s right, we should stick together. And since Naruto can’t be subtle to save his life-” She ignored Naruto’s offended yelp with remarkable dignity. “-I think our best bet is if you throw on a henge. Someone who might be seen with us, someone you think you can impersonate, if we run into someone who knows us.”

Genma had a few suggestions, but he stayed silent, watching to see who Sasuke would pick. Sasuke thought, then smirked, and formed the one-handed version of the henge seal. When the puff of smoke cleared, Genma grinned. “Good choice.” He said to the boy who now looked like an unassuming and much beloved academy teacher.

[citrusandbergamot]

I ain't been dropping no eaves sir, promise