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Chapter Text

The ceiling fan was lazily spinning, and Naruto tilted his head.

“Don't jump the ceiling fan.” Kakashi-Sensei turned a page of his book. He was sitting behind an old desk. The desk had a big crack along the surface, hidden by the papers and pamphlets. “We can't afford to fix the desk. Again.”

Sasuke humphed from his spot in the corner, while Sakura stepped back, pressing her back against the wall. Naruto sulked. “But, but! That wasn't my fault! Sasuke–”

“I didn't do anything!” Sasuke interrupted, and Naruto growled. His fingers itched along his belt, but all of his weapons had been hidden away in the desk. He settled for angrily pacing the ceiling, giving the fan a wide berth.

It started on the third day after making Genin. Team Seven had been given a lesson on Genjutsu when Naruto had made a simple statement about how he could notice a foreign chakra if it was the same yellow as his. Kakashi-Sensei had given him this strange look, before getting whisked away to another part of the academy, blindfolded and given instructions to find everyone in the room without taking the blindfold off. Naruto had grumbled and griped for twenty minutes, but found everyone without moving a single step.

So Naruto – with Team Seven – got sent to a Shinobi Recruitment Office in a small town about two kilometers south of Konoha. “Because that's what all Sensors do to train,” Kakashi-Sensei had said, handing Naruto a scroll, which Naruto handed to Sakura to read. According to it, Team Seven was now on an extended C-Rank mission to seek out individuals with exceptional chakra potential, capable of becoming Konoha Shinobi. In other words, Naruto was going to learn how to sense chakra by finding new academy recruits, while Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi-Sensei got to aid his training.

Iruka-Sensei wouldn't stop laughing when Naruto told him.

In retrospect, that should have been the first clue.

Two weeks later, Naruto had finally gotten used to the fuzzy mist that was civilian chakra. Now, he had to find the fireflies – the kids with the potential to mold chakra. Naruto didn't understand how they could do that just by sitting in the little fifteen-by-twenty-foot office, but Kakashi-Sensei had spouted off all sorts of complex numbers that made Naruto's head spin, and left Sakura starry-eyed.

Their days amounted to Naruto molding chakra, which apparently made his sensing skills better, while Sasuke and Sakura badgered Kakashi-Sensei for lessons and training. Kakashi-Sensei, for his part, was treating the entire thing like a vacation. It was all unbearably boring, in Naruto's opinion. Even if he did get to lord his awesomeness as a Sensor over Sasuke's head.

The most interesting part of it all was that nobody gave Naruto a second glance. Not even a glance of recognition, not even a spark of anger at his mere presence. The weirdest part of it was that everyone was nice to him. No one was mean, or dismissive, or... anything, really, toward Naruto. It was kinda creepy, if he was completely honest.

But that was where the interesting ended. After those first two weeks of getting used to civilian chakra signatures, the rest of the month became a monotony of nobody ever coming into the off–

Naruto's head shot toward the entrance. There was... something. People. Four of them.

Kakashi-Sensei peeked over his book. “Sense someone?”

“Four people. Shinobi. One's got more chakra than the others.” Naruto waved a hand. “Like, way more. And they're coming this way.”

“A Genin team?” Kakashi-Sensei closed his book. “That's odd.”

“Maybe it's someone from our class?” Sakura offered, staring at the glass front. She squinted. “Wait. Is that...”

The door opened. Kakashi-Sensei straightened, giving a half-hearted wave. “Yo, Kurenai.”

“Ha! So it's true!” Kiba barked in laughter. “You got desk duty! Shino! Shino, are you seeing this?”

“Oh!” Sakura waved. “You know sensei?”

“We would have been classmates if he hadn't genius'd out at age five.” Kurenai gave Kakashi-Sensei a pointed look before focusing on Sakura. “So, recruitment office duty? Does that make you the sensor?”

“Hey, I'm the awesome sensor!” Naruto waved from where he was stuck to the wall above Sasuke. “Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage and best sensor ever!”

Kiba took one look at Naruto and burst out laughing. He didn't stop, even when Kurenai glared at him. Naruto wished he had a Kunai to throw at Kiba's head.

Shinobi Recruitment Office duty sucked.

Chapter Text

Sasuke glared at the building. Sakura stared, unimpressed by trying not to act like it. Naruto frowned.

Kakashi-Sensei swung an arm out, presenting the building with a flourish. “Welcome to the Nagechika district's Shinobi Recruitment Center!”

The center was actually a single office, big windows on the front with the words Konohagakure Recruitment Center stenciled in blocky letters across it. From what they saw inside, it consisted of one desk, two extra chairs, and a very sad-looking potted plant sitting in one corner. Motivational posters dotted the walls, with the shadow of a door leading into some sort of back room.

“...I call secret base!” Naruto pumped his fist, walking toward the building. He pushed the glass door open, letting the bell jangle as he peered around. “Where's the secret entrance?”

Kakashi-Sensei strolled in, taking a seat in the chair behind the desk. “There's no secret entrance. This is exactly what every single recruitment office looks like across the Land of Fire. What's really interesting is how our layout is different from Iwa's layout. See, once during the third war I had to fake an ulcer to get inside–”

“Boring!” Naruto declared. “Get to the explosions, Sensei! The boom, pow, whap!”

“...not all my stories are like that.” Kakashi-Sensei leaned back, propping his legs on the desk and cracking open a book – one that looked very familiar. “But aren't you interested in hearing about that time I nearly got killed stealing an Iwa recruitment pamphlet?”

“No.” Sasuke crinkled his nose, peering into the back room. It was partly a kitchen, with a staircase to one side leading to the second floor. All of it looked like it hadn't been dusted in years. “Where do we train?”

“Ah, yes.” Kakashi-Sensei nodded, turning a page. “Training is an important state of mind. And we shall begin by sweeping the dust off of everything. Including the ceiling.”

Sakura squinted, deep in thought. “The ceiling...” Sasuke glanced at her, but questions weren't forthcoming. Naruto, meanwhile, had vanished upstairs. Which left him to do the obvious. “And how are we supposed to sweep the ceiling.”

“With chakra, of course.” Kakashi-Sensei swiveled his chair, planted his feet on the wall and... walked. Literally walked. Sasuke squinted. Chakra, obviously, was being used. But the how...

“You're channeling chakra to your feet to stick to the wall.” Sakura nodded. “That's... in-genius, actually. Is it proportionate to your height or your weight?”

Kakashi-Sensei peeked up from his book, interested in Sakura's question. Sasuke was too, but he didn't say as much. Kakashi-Sensei hummed. “I haven't actually thought about it. I guess we'll find out. Channel chakra to your feet, and then stick to the wall. The same principle works for trees, so the next time we're traveling, we can go much faster.”

Sasuke channeled chakra to his feet, preparing a running start. He was going to learn how to do this, and then he was going to mas–

His foot slipped on the third step up, and Sasuke came crashing down onto the desk, cracking the surface. Naturally, Naruto was there, in the doorway, to see it all happen. The blond then started laughing. “Oh my god Sasuke what were you trying to do, walk on the...”

Naruto's laughter trailed off as he spotted Kakashi-Sensei and Sakura, both of whom were standing on the ceiling. Sakura gave him a wave, and Sasuke swore he could see the exact moment Naruto created a challenge: get to the ceiling before Sasuke.

Well, Sasuke wasn't going to let him win that challenge, was he?

Chapter Text

“Contain it! Contain it!” Naruto screeched, sending half a dozen clones after the target. Behind him – the real him, because there was no way he was gonna put his real self in the line of fire – Sakura crouched, while Kakashi-Sensei peered around the door to the break room. Naruto would have considered finally getting Sensei to close his book as a major victory if he weren't so busy creating and sending out more clones to herd the target into place.

He also would've considered the victory of getting so close to Sakura, if it weren't obvious that she was just using him as a human shield. To be fair, though, he was using Sasuke as a shield.

“Away from the table!” Naruto called out to his clones – there were three left, and he almost made more, had Sakura not wrapped her arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides.

“Don't!” she commanded, and Naruto felt the stirrings of something that was entirely inappropriate. “It's nearly in place, and we don't need you mucking up and us having to set the entire place on fire.”

Naruto wilted, and nodded at the clone that was placed at the door to the fridge. The last of the clones picked up the target – a fuzzy blue glob of rotten something – and launched itself at the fridge. The Naruto there yanked the door open, revealing an entire ecosystem of fuzzy blue globs, and the launched clone was sacrificed to the things.

Sasuke ran through the Hand Signs, inhaled, and blew out a gout of flame, killing the sacrificial clone and the colony of fuzzy globs. Sakura cheered, and Naruto would never own up to his own cheer, as the mold colony died. The sprinkler system went off, snuffing out Sasuke's fire, and Naruto's remaining clone, who had ducked behind the fridge door, slammed it shut. It gave a victory pose as it poofed away.

“Well,” Kakashi-Sensei said, his silver hair matted down over his eye, and Naruto wondered how he could even see through all that hair. “That was... entertaining.”

Sirens rang in the distance, and Sakura stepped away from Naruto, eyeing the fridge with trepidation. “Did we kill it?”

“I hope so.” Naruto dropped onto the floor, bumping against Sasuke. “You got a good look. What do you think?”

Sasuke fell to his knees, then onto his back. He was breathing heavily, every exhale steaming in the wet air. “If it's not dead, then we send Kakashi after it.”

Kakashi-Sensei shook his head even as Naruto sniggered and Sakura gave him an expectant stare. “Oh, minions. Minions, minions, minions. If you can't defeat an enemy, what makes you think I can?”

“...I call stealing Sensei's underwear.” Naruto exclaimed, and Sasuke smacked him upside the head.

“Do not, moron.”

Naruto opened his mouth to argue, before realizing something better. “Or we could just try to feed it with Sensei.”

Sakura and Sasuke paused, shared a glance, then all three Genin turned to face Kakashi-Sensei. Sensei, for his part, started to back away. “Now, now. Someone has to explain to the nice fire department why the sprinklers went off...”

“Sakura can do that, because she's nice,” Naruto argued. “But if we feed you to Fuzzy, then we'll get a pet.”

“We're not keeping it as a pet, moron.”

“We're totally keeping it as a pet, bastard.”

Sakura patted Kakashi-Sensei on the arm. “Don't worry, Sensei. I won't let Naruto name it Fuzzy.”

Chapter Text

Sasuke rolled over in his futon, curling tighter into a ball, and paused.

Something wasn't right.

He woke quickly, first curling tighter, then relaxing. Blinking away sleep, he sat up and looked around. In the three weeks they'd been at the recruitment office, Naruto had not failed to spend every single night wrapping all of his limbs around Sasuke. Sasuke had thrown Naruto across the room, but somehow the blond kept making his way back to curling around Sasuke. Kakashi had taken one look at Naruto – he shuddered in recollection – cuddling Sasuke before turning away, mumbling something about inner-team relationships. Sakura had just looked jealous of Naruto's position. Sasuke hated that Naruto had drooled all over his cheek.

But now, in the light of the full moon shining through the open window, the idiot was nowhere to be found. He also noticed how Kakashi was awake as well, and waited for the older man's orders.

The window had not been open when Sasuke had lain down to sleep.

“He's not kidnapped.” Kakashi's voice, softer than usual, wafted through the air. “If I'm right, he's on the roof.”

Sasuke stood, moving toward the window and peering up. Naruto was indeed on the edge of the roof, and when Sasuke joined him, the Uchiha saw that Naruto was wide awake. The light of the moon reflected in Naruto's eyes, and he didn't notice when Sasuke joined him. Sasuke squinted up at the moon, snorting when Naruto still didn't notice. “Did you come up here to stare, or aren't you going to howl?”

Naruto didn't respond, and Sasuke put all his attention on the blond. Something about the entire thing unnerved him, and he couldn't pin it down. Eventually, he realized that Naruto was barely blinking. Sasuke channeled chakra into his hand, reaching out to startle Naruto out of the gen–

“This isn't a genjutsu.”

Sasuke nearly fell off the roof, and turned to glare at Kakashi.

“He's unresponsive and hasn't blinked in almost ten minutes.” Sasuke laid out the facts, and Kakashi nodded along. “Besides, what else can make Naruto stand still?”

“This is something Naruto does,” Kakashi replied. “Every night of the full moon he goes to the roof and spends all night staring at it. It's baffled many people. So far he hasn't talked to anyone.”

“How would you know that?” Sasuke scoffed. “And, what, nobody thought to ask him? Hey Naruto, why are you staring at the moon?”

“It's empty.” Sasuke and Kakashi both jerked at the sound of Naruto's voice. He was still staring at the moon, and his eyes still seemed so glassy. “The moon is empty.”

Sasuke glanced at Kakashi, who shrugged and made a gesture for the teen to continue. Kakashi looked intent, like he was dedicating the entire exchange to memory. Sasuke turned back to Naruto. “Why do you say that? The moon's still there.”

“She's not there anymore.” Naruto answered. “Someone stole away the body, a long time ago.”

Sasuke shared a concerned look at Kakashi. “Who is she?”

“I can't tell you her name.” Naruto blinked, and Sasuke found it to be one of the creepier things the blond had ever done. “The shadow is watching.”

Sasuke glanced at Naruto's shadow, a pool of black upon his feet. He considered asking why Naruto couldn't share the woman's name, but instead said, “The shadow isn't watching.”

“It is.” Naruto insisted. “It's been watching ever since the moon was created.”

“And she was sealed inside the moon?” Sasuke confirmed, rolling his eyes at the fairy tale. “Right.”

Naruto didn't nod, but the edges of his lips tilted in a smile. “Yeah. The moon was created to hold her body, after her stolen chakra was returned to the world. But now it's empty.” He blinked again. “Is a cage still a cage if it's empty?”

Sasuke shivered. The entire conversation wasn't going the way he'd hoped, or even expected. “How do you know all that?”

Naruto didn't answer, back to staring at the full moon. Sasuke glanced back at Kakashi, only to find the older man had vanished, presumably to transcribe the conversation. He considered going back into the apartment, but found he couldn't leave Naruto to the silent vigil.

The next morning, Sasuke had asked Naruto about the previous night, but the blond had just given a blank stare. Sasuke didn't ask again.

Chapter Text

Falling asleep in an unfamiliar place was not new to Sasuke. That first night in the recruitment office, he'd merely laid atop his futon and fallen asleep.

What was new, however, was the pile of warm thing that had wrapped around him at some point. He tried to escape, to get an arm loose enough to reach a Kunai and stab whatever it was until it was a pile of goo that he could set fire to in one of the back alleys.

Unfortunately, said thing only squeezed tighter the more Sasuke rebelled. Eventually, he realized what, exactly, the thing was.

The thing was his teammate: Naruto.

Craning his neck, Sasuke saw, through the mess of Naruto's hair, the blond's futon to the side, half-kicked away. Somehow, Naruto had managed to roll off of his futon, onto – and into – Sasuke's, and then proceeded to latch onto him like a squid capturing its prey.

He considered his options. Sasuke could headbutt Naruto, use the pain to wake the idiot up so he could go back to his own futon and leave Sasuke to his sleep. But headbutts hurt him too, and as much as he wanted to wake up the idiot, he wasn't keen on the loss of his own sleep, and the following headache. Sasuke would kick Naruto, but there wasn't a guarantee of that doing anything more than make the blond angry and try to cuddle – no, not cuddle, strangle, strangle was the word Sasuke used to describe it, it was in no way cuddling, Sasuke didn't cuddle – him more.

He could bite Naruto. The pain would be enough to wake Naruto, with as little issue or interruption to Sasuke's sleep. Except Sasuke really didn't want to know what Naruto tasted like.

Sasuke shimmied, twisting and turning in Naruto's grip to see that Sakura was as asleep as Sasuke wanted to be, and Kakashi...

Well, he looked like he was sleeping, but Sasuke couldn't be certain. The Jonin seemed the type to feign sleep, especially if Sasuke tried to bother him about such a seemingly trivial issue.

He turned his attention back to the sleeping Naruto, and reconsidered the headbutt. It was tempting, really tempting, but...

He sighed, which sounded more like the beginning of a long-suffering groan, and settled down to get back to sleep. It wouldn't matter what he did, if Naruto was going to do this every night.

The next day he asked how Naruto was able to sleep with the light of the town (and the moon) shining down on him from the window – which was a fair question, since their futons were right where the dim light of the waxing moon shown into the room. Naruto had given Sasuke a weird look like he was the idiot, and said that he couldn't fall asleep unless he was under the light of the moon.

...three weeks later, when the full moon happened, Sasuke found an answer that left him with more and more questions about his teammate.

Chapter Text

Naruto squinted at the basket of dirty clothes. Namely, that it had a mountain double its size sitting within.

“Okay,” Naruto said, when nobody did anything about it. “We're doing laundry.”

“What?” Sakura blinked down from where she was trying to stick to the ceiling using only her hands. “But it hasn't been–”

She was cut off as her hands unstuck from the ceiling, and she dropped to the floor. Sasuke flicked another Kunai into the back room, perfectly hitting the dead center of the painted target. Bastard.

Kakashi-Sensei looked up from the scroll he was writing in (Naruto hadn't even tried to peek. Okay he tried, and Kakashi-Sensei had cheated and used his Jonin awesomeness to keep Naruto from reading. “This isn't for such young eyes to see,” he had said. Since then, Naruto suspected Kakashi-Sensei wrote his own porn). The eyebrow crawled up his forehead. “Oh? Does this mean you're volunteering laundry duty?”

“It means I'm calling in the whole team on this,” Naruto grinned. “Teamwork mission: laundry!”

Sasuke made Disgusted Noise Seven. Naruto interpreted it as feigned disinterest despite now Naruto was totally correct. “Just because you ran out of clothes doesn't mean you can do ours. Do you even know how to do laundry?”

“I don't need to,” Naruto bit back, swallowing the insult on the tip of his tongue. He held up his wallet, giving it a shake to the coins could jingle. “ 'sides, you telling me that you wash your clothes all traditional? Laundromats exist, bastard.”

Sakura shivered, getting a determined look on her face. “No. I will not allow you to defile my personal clothes in that kind of place. Besides,” she glanced around, avoiding looking at anyone. “I can do my own laundry, and it's not so bad.”

Naruto nodded. “Well, there's just the one basket, so unless you wanna start tossing your stuff on the floor to separate everything...” Naruto trailed off. The three clones he'd left upstairs started coming down the stairs. Sasuke flung a Shuriken and Naruto heard a poof, feeling the phantom pain of getting hit in the throat. “Bastard. That bag is yours to carry. Don't want me to carry the laundry, then pick a me and take that bag.”

He snagged the basket, much less full with the overflow stuffed into bags, and started walking out the door. Sakura punched a clone and took his bag, while Sensei merely slung a clone over his shoulder, bag and all. Sasuke cursed, grabbed the fallen bag, and followed. “Idiot. How are you going to wash any of this at a laundromat?”

“Do you even know how to do laundry?” Sakura asked, and Naruto rolled his eyes. She had so little faith.

“I've been living on my own as long as I can remember,” Naruto answered. “Same as all the other parentless kids. I know how to do laundry. And budget.” He paused. “Also great at filing taxes. And filing in general. Admin keeps crying every time I enter their department. Got set loose there once when I was nine. Reorganized the whole system in an entire afternoon. Never let back in there since.”

Naruto paused when he realized that everyone had stopped. Kakashi-Sensei gave him a strange look. “That shrine in admin is for you?”

Naruto blinked. “They have a shrine?”

Admin was weird.

Sasuke shook his head, as if he was clearing away the weirdness, and continued on the way. “I don't believe that anyone would ever worship you.”

Naruto grinned as Sasuke walked through the intersection. “Oh bastard~!” he sang. Sasuke stiffened. “Laundromat's this way.”

Sasuke's gloom darkened, and Naruto grinned as he led the team to the laundromat. This was awesome. Best day in the history of ever.

At the laundromat, he found himself becoming responsible for everything. “Sensei! Don't just shove it all into the washer! Separate! Separate!”

“Into what?” Sasuke snarled, from where he was also shoving everything into a single washer. “Shirts and pants?”

“Oh my god, Sasuke.” Naruto had two clones try to pull Sasuke away from the washer. “Dark clothes and lights. Colors bleed, asshole. Whites and delicates get washed separate from everything else.”

“How do you know all this?” Sakura asked two washers down, where she was doing exactly what Naruto said. Automatically that made her so much smarter than Sasuke and Kakashi-Sensei.

“I've been living on my own,” he said. “Not like there was anyone there to teach me any of this stuff.” He shrugged. “You learn by doing, mostly. Soon as I figured out how it wasn't done, I knew how to actually do it.”

“Kinesthetic learning,” Kakashi-Sensei applied. At Naruto's blank look he explained. “Hands-on learning.”

“Yep.” Naruto nodded, sending the remaining two clones to fix Kakashi-Sensei's dreadful laundry work. “It's also how I figured out how to reorganize admin's filing system. Hold this.”

He handed Kakashi-Sensei the laundry basket, pulling out his wallet and several 5-ryo coins. All four washers were set in, and Naruto patted his hands. He felt like the most accomplished member of his team.

Sasuke smacked him upside the head. “Deflate that ego. Putting coins into a slot isn't something to feel proud over.”

“Let's see you measure out the right amount of detergent for...” Naruto counted the washers out. “Three double-loads of laundry. Oh crap.”

“You forget the detergent?” Kakashi-Sensei asked.

“No,” Naruto wailed. “This is going to ruin my budget!”

This time, Sakura hit him on the head.

Chapter Text

Naruto felt a familiar tickle in his nose. He blinked and sniffled, hoping that it was enough to make it go away. The tickle got worse, and Naruto felt his chest tighten.

He was about to sneeze.

“Uh-oh.” The declaration brought the office to a standstill, everyone looking at Naruto as he went pale. “Oh no no nononononono!”

“...Naruto?” Kakashi-Sensei asked, looking up from the scroll he was writing in. He looked far too concerned for Naruto's liking. “What do you sense?”

“It's not–” Naruto tried to protest, then sucked in a breath sharply. His chest got tighter, the itch in his nose crawling along the back of his throat. “Dammit!”

Naruto ran from the office, deeper into the building, and barely made it on the third step of the stairs before Kakashi-Sensei was there, blocking him. Sasuke and Sakura entered the room, and Naruto was trapped, feeling his chest getting tighter and tighter. The itch burned now, in his throat and his lungs. Naruto took deep breaths, and felt the sparks of embers hissing a death knell against his teeth and tongue. He tasted ash and soot.

“Sensei?” Sakura glanced from Naruto to Kakashi-Sensei and back, worried. Beside her, Sasuke was looking just as concerned. Naruto wasn't glad for the attention, since the sneeze was coming, and it was coming soon. “That's not normal...”

“Gonna sneeze,” Naruto managed to wheeze, trying to push past Kakashi-Sensei. If he just got to the roof then it could happen without incident for once in his life.

He took a sharp inhale, and had just a moment to think aw crap before the sneeze hit. A ball of fire shot out, exploding on the wall above the sink. Everyone jolted, while Naruto wheezed out the last embers of the fire left within him. His chest felt considerably lighter, and Naruto sighed in relief. He felt lightheaded and giddy, like he always did after a sneeze, and giggled, slumping against the wall. He watched as the sprinklers went off, dousing the fire, and Naruto patted Kakashi-Sensei's knee. “Good sneeze.”

“That... was a sneeze?” Sasuke stared at the charred wall. “What the fuck?”

“Sometimes I gotta sneeze,” Naruto laughed, still giddy. “Fire comes out like whoosh! Hehe, I'm gonna regret this later.”

“How... often do you have to sneeze?” Kakashi-Sensei asked, staring at Naruto worrriedly.

“Not usually,” Naruto replied, still patting Kakashi-Sensei's knee. “Takes time to work up a sneeze. Usually get a good hour warning 'fore one, though.” He blinked sleepily. “I call 'em foxfire, 'cuz of the whooshiness and fwooshiness and the me-ness. Ah!” Naruto reached for the dying flame, trying to protect it from the evil water. He ended up flopping off the stairs and onto the floor. “Don't let my baby die!”

Kakashi-Sensei picked Naruto up, slinging the blond over the shoulder like he was a sack of laundry. “Come along, kids. Time to explain things to the fire department again.” Naruto caught the mutter of, “for the fifth time this year.”

Later, when he was left with the job of cleaning up and fixing the fire damaged wall, Naruto would regret laughing. In the moment, however, giddy with air and the relief of post-sneeze, Naruto cackled in Kakashi-Sensei's face.