Mistake - A Naruto Fan-Fiction 9 The Nara Clan

's.h.i.+t.' I gulped, trying hard to conceal my presence when his voice reached my ears.

Oh, if someone's ever going to wonder what on earth I'm doing, I'm hiding from my one of a kind uncle—well, hiding my presence and running away from him. Yes, this is training. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d is an amazing sensor—in my view, anyways, and I have to get away from him to not get tied upside down on a branch.

Knowing him from the show and real life, he'd probably keep his word.

Also, Karasu-niisan is just watching me, thanks to the convenient seal he placed on my top to easily locate me, from afar, hidden deep in the dark woods surrounding this particular training ground—Training Ground 13. Yes, thirteen.

Is it me or this world just a.s.sociates me with the number 13? I was born in this world on October 13, this training ground is numbered 13, and this book first came out in the same day I was born here… I'm becoming too self-aware, I know. I should stop breaking the fourth wall, which I think is crumbling right now.

Someone needs to rebuild that.

Anyways, I really should focus on getting away from my psychopath of an uncle, or I'm going to end up tied and hanged upside down on a tree branch… and no want wants that, especially me.

This "training" is to test my skills in hiding my chakra signature, and supposed to only last for two hours—but it feels like it has been a complete eternity since all of this started… and I don't know how long it has been.

Even though I have a generally small chakra reserve, it's hard to stop it from "flickering" so, I took a deep breath and hid my chakra signature much more than an average child in this world would in desperation just to get away. Indeed, I'm desperate.

Have you seen that scarecrow get all hyped from torturing people? Well, I sure haven't, but I don't want to know. Kami knows what on earth that guy is thinking. He's as random as me—I think so, anyways.

Oh, and for some reason, he's never, I repeat, never late, which is quite alarming. I don't know if that's ever gonna change, or if he's still late to other "events" and meetings except if it involves me and just being extra for his "cute", little nephew.

Thoughts aside, it seems like I'm hidden well enough and far enough from Kakas.h.i.+… and I'm really tired. I still haven't fixed my fatigue issue, which I think is being affected by my weak uh… heart? I don't really know. I'm no doctor in the past up to now.

Doctor…

Medic ninja, huh? Hm… seems interesting.

A flicker of chakra signature reached my system, snapping me out of my trance. That chakra is far too familiar to be around right now—that s.h.i.+t belongs to the person I'm supposed to avoid. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's being generous, flaring up his chakra to alert me.

I really need to lay low right now—he's like a few meters away, in a pace as though it's a perfect, sunny day for a walk.

'It's almost winter, d.a.m.n it! There's no need for a "perfect summer walk", Bakas.h.i.+-psycho-sensei!' Ooh… that name suits him well… hm. But I'm sure I'm not going to call him like that in front of anyone any time soon if I want to live a peaceful life in the next few years.

I froze instantaneously when a brittle crunch of a dried branch reached my ears. I'm hiding under some giant roots right now, and I can literally feel his presence right above from where I'm hiding. Cold sweat trickled down my forehead—I've never been so nervous in my entire—past included—life.

Sure I get scared time to time (like that white masked man disaster), but I never really get nervous like around anyone. It's literally breath-taking, seriously. b.u.t.terflies are rampaging in my insides too, which isn't good.

I need to calm the fvck down if I don't want to get caught.

And I'm not planning to get caught.

Now, I'm stuck between debating with myself if I should just bail out of this place or just stay. Bailing is quite the risky one, considering the fact that that silver-haired ANBU is h.e.l.la lot faster than me, and staying is quite unsafe too, since he's near and all.

If I only knew Shuns.h.i.+n, I could've ran away ages ago from this nincomp.o.o.p.

Pfft—nincomp.o.o.p—

A familiar snicker resonated through the forest.

's.h.i.+t. Did he find me…!?'

"Ah, Ori-kun…" He mused as I peeked through a tiny s.p.a.ce between the roots that only showed me his back. "It looks like…"

'I'm screwed.' He's slowly turning around like one from those cliché horror films, and I don't like it. It fits perfectly for his character, which makes me uncomfortable.

"… you've pa.s.sed." He smiled, placing a hand on his waist. "It's already past the two-hour time mark. You can come out now." He a.s.sured, signalling someone, whom I a.s.sumed to be Karasu-niisan (who else?), to come there as well.

How ironic—the scarecrow and the crow seems to be talking to each other.

The bird swiftly gave his gaze to me before appearing right in front of me, which made me jump. Who's not gonna jump? Someone with a black mask will suddenly appear right in front of your face and you're not gonna be scared? Hah. Nonsense.

My heart pounded for a moment until it finally registered that everything's fine. "Can you not appear… without a warning at times like… this?" I heaved a long sigh, following him out of the hole I hid in.

"Oh?" The scarecrow raised a brow, "Good job at suppressing your chakra signature. I actually didn't know you were there." He then approached us before placing a hand on my head, smiling under his mask, "Though, there were times when your chakra was just flickering and flaring out some times earlier, but you got better at hiding it during the two-hour training."

I nodded as I peeled off the seal Karasu-niisan placed on my top. "That's probably when… I was thinking of ways how to hide it better…" I told him, giving the paper with scribbles back to the crow.

"Then, we can proceed to the next part of our training." Kakas.h.i.+'s words caught my attention.

Training again? "Can we… have a little break?" I asked him, thinking of ways I could persuade him.

"Why?" He tilted his head, trying to look for answers in my eyes.

"It's just that…" I sighed, "I haven't seen s.h.i.+ka for a while…" Look at me, dragging people into my lies. Fun.

The scarecrow blinked for a moment before his lips curved into a small smile, "I guess you can have your day off for today. You've done a pretty good job in training from the past week."

'Woah, that was easy.'

"But, I'm going to have Karasu with you at all times. The White-Masks cases sure did stop for a while, but it's better safe than sorry." Kakas.h.i.+'s right—the cases stopped for no reason, but you'll never know when they'd be back.

But… I'd feel like I'm never having my own time seeing that I have an ANBU following me everywhere I go. Stares will surely be directed towards me if I have him right next to me at all times. Ugh… safety purposes my a.s.s.

I looked at Karasu-niisan, who was bowing from the scarecrow's order. I raised a brow at him as he directed an eye smile at me. I gave him a bored stare, "Huh." Weird.

With that, Kakas.h.i.+ literally shooed us away, out of the training grounds and onto the path home. How nice of him. SO nice that it seemed as though he's doing this on purpose. I narrowed my eyes at him as he watched both Karasu-niisan and I fade into the distance. 'What do you have in mind, Scarecrow?'

He may actually still be a little disturbed when both of my parents here knew of his schemes—training me. I say disturbed, because kasan was ecstatic when she heard me say that uncle's the one training me. She told me about something that "I'd definitely learn" from that man.

She seemed excited and rushed to Kakas.h.i.+ the very next day, almost suffocating him in a tight hug. I was so sure I heard a crack then, but I chose to ignore the fact that the poor silver-haired young man might've broken a bone or two. Who knows? The crack might've just came from… uh… weapons being crushed? I don't really want to know.

Tou-san, on the other hand, was a bit disappointed that I was placed under the Hatake's care over s.h.i.+kaku-san's, but he saw the pros over the cons so, he chose to just accept it and trust him—not without giving a warning to the young scarecrow that if something ever happens to me…

That's where I stopped listening to their conversation. I was just pa.s.sing by then, but I could tell that whatever tou-san said, it really did get to the scarecrow's system. Kakas.h.i.+ was to be described as really disturbed then—he was a bit pale and had a bit of weird aura surrounding him.

Well, in the end, tou-san really trusts Kakas.h.i.+ that nothing will happen to me, seeing that he had taken great efforts to show that he'd really protect me when the time comes—which is nowhere near today, I hope.

Now that I think about it, I don't really know my parents well, despite of living four well years in this ninja world. I just know them as my kasan and tou-san. That's all.

I do not know why several s.h.i.+n.o.bi's who often visit the house think well highly of them. I do not know why they never go out in public without doing henge's. I do not know why they don't want to be involved in public matters. I do not know of their past.

I do not know what they're hiding… I do not know them.

My family sure is shrouded with mystery. Why, you ask? Well, it's quite obvious and pretty self-explanatory. There's no need for me to explain why my mother is secretive, and why my father chooses to not be the best because, again, I do not know them well enough to speak for them.

"…go? Orion-kun…?" Karasu-niisan's voice snapped me out of my deep trance. "You seem to be in deep thought…"

"Hm?" I looked up at him, "Were you saying something?"

"I was asking where you wanted to go…" He told me with a hint of curiousness in his tone.

"Good question." I nodded, he deadpanned. "Well… I want to visit s.h.i.+ka, I think."

"A bit unsure, I see." The crow chuckled, placing his fingers to where his mouth should be, as though covering them to hide his laughter.

I just shrugged and continued to walk beside him.

It was a pretty peaceful walk, and could've been better if it weren't for the stares several civilians and ninja's gave both Karasu-niisan and I. We stopped by a convenient store first because I haven't had ice cream in a while so, I got one for myself and for the crow.

And, if you're wondering how he ate his with his mask, his mask can actually be separated in half, which is pretty convenient. He ate the ice cream without his… uh… the beak part (lower half) of his crow mask, which I think is quite cool. No pun intended.

After the short break, we finally reached the forest surrounding the Nara compound. Since I was granted pa.s.sage in here not too long ago, I can safely travel in and out of this mysterious (and deadly) forest. Karasu-niisan was also granted pa.s.sage since he's my bodyguard and all so, that's that.

Now, I understand the purpose of "granting a pa.s.sage" of the Nara's. The clan head will place a permanent seal (through tattoo or scarring), or just give a paper seal (which needs to be destroyed after use), to someone, allowing them to walk freely in the forest without worrying about the pure and dense chakra in the area.

Seriously, when I first got out of the compound's gates with Karasu-niisan, I felt this weird and heavy pressure blanketing over my body. It was as if it was just pure chakra sticking to me, suffocating me with my every step. I was, still am, thankful that the crow used Shuns.h.i.+n to get both of us out of the forest in a blink of an eye.

The seal will vary in scribbles and design if one's not a born Nara (visitors and such), or one is a kin, like me.

s.h.i.+kaku-san had my pa.s.s permanently tattooed on my back, just under the back of my neck. It contained a few scribbles I'm familiar with (I've read some stuff about them—seals and the like), like the seal for protection, shadow, and light. Of course, it also contained the Nara clan symbol.

Karasu-niisan got his tattooed on his right ankle, seeing that he's going to be stuck with me until my training's done (he saw it as a convenient seal), and is quite different from mine. His only got the three main seal building the, well, seal—protection, shadow, and light, with the shadow at the centre. It doesn't have the Nara clan symbol.

I remember seeing kasan's seal when I was little, and really didn't paid close enough attention to know about it and thought that it's only there for aesthetic. Hers is pretty similar to Karasu-niisan's, with the only difference is the symbol in the centre—the light seal. Hers got a small Nara symbol above the light seal, which I find oddly cool.

Tou-san's was scarred on his back, which I found a bit strange to see after he let me see it before I got my tattoo. The scar seal's same as mine, but his got a clean cut running through the middle, which makes me wonder what happened. I didn't question him, seeing that he kept avoiding the subject.

Kakas.h.i.+ also has one, placed on his back. Like kasan and the crow, his is also different—the protection seal is in the middle. I only saw it once when he was changing after I pushed him into a body of water when we were taking a short break in training a few days ago—and he wasn't amused even though he was the one who started it all.

Ah, the Nara mystery continues. It seems like the manga and the anime really left out these big details, huh? I didn't even know about the forest's mysterious chakra until now—until I saw it for myself.

Intruders can really be obliterated when they trespa.s.s the area. Seeing that I'm a Nara too, and the forest still "attacked" me when I didn't have the seal proves it.

If you think about it more, Nara's are really interesting—and I'm really thankful I landed in this clan. Landing in the Uzumaki's or in the Uchiha's would be a complete cliché, right? Both the Yamanaka's and the Akamichi's seems interesting, but the Nara's tops them more.

And I'm not saying they're better—I'm just saying that the Nara's are quite the mysterious clan, more than the Uchiha's or the Ōtsu… Ōts… whatever clan that was [1].

I could literally bend the rules of the Nara's jusu's if I have the brain and imagination to do it. Sure, I revised a jutsu or two, but there's more out there—discovered or not. Who knows? I might be the one who will unravel the clan's secrets and discover what the shrouding mystery of the forest surrounding the clan is.

That's actually a pretty high dream. I might consider doing that since it sounds like a good challenge.

I sighed, noticing that both the crow and I are getting closer to the main household of the said clan. It seems like my thoughts have successfully distracted me from the real world again.

When we reached the said house, I was greeted by a lazy greeting from my best of friend (singular because I only have one at the moment, I think).

"It's been a while, Orion."