A shinobi is a high school student like an other - 18

A thunder of applause to Nine Tailed Vixen, betareader extraordinaire. Thank you, and thank you all out there who keeps on reading and reviewing.

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Once out of sight of any potential witnesses, I climbed on a roof with the help of a drainpipe. I began jumping and running from roof to roof, too quickly to be seen by an untrained eye, to reach the HQ as soon as possible. Gen' was a fucker when he wanted to be, but he never called without a good reason. None of them did. If he was saying there was bad news, seeing the current situation, to know stuff the earliest was for the best.

The temperature had dropped once more - enough for the city to wake up as an ice rink by tomorrow. Iruka's sweater was welcomed with each passing minute.

Genma was pacing in front of the main door, waiting outside. He had to be either stressed or irritated - he hates cold. I landed in front of him. He had a bandage on his cheek.

"You're finally here. C'mon, Yondaime's in the meeting room."

I fell into step behind him, going inside the very busy building - this activity was weird for this time of the day, but this kind of 'weird' had become the usual for all departments since the hack of our system, and Saturday's 'meeting'.

"What happened to you?" I asked, briefly indicating his cheek.

He rubbed lightly at the bandage in what seemed to be an unconscious move.

"The two guys we caught Saturday finally spilled what they knew today, and they talked about a place used as a rendezvous, or a hide-out -well, anyway, Terry and I went to check it out. The place was a bar on one of the streets under the underground's rule. The problem was that the back of the place was a fucking fight-club. Our faces didn't please the guys there, and they got us out a bit violently. Fuck, you should have seen it! There were guys with arms twice as big as my fucking thighs! If it had been one of them who had hit me, I'd be dead for sure!"

We walked past still lighted and used offices, and past uniformed squads going up and down from lockers and training rooms. Kodia nearly bumped into us at a corridor's crossing - he was going down to the meetings rooms too.

There are many rooms used as meeting rooms in the HQ, used depending on the people coming and of what we wanted to show them - or to let them see. The one we were going to was a 'hidden' one, used when confidential stuff was exposed, or when dangerous missions involving the best were planned or, as tonight seemed to be, to have crisis meeting.

Entrance was restricted - the door opened only with fingerprints and chakra influx.

The upper crust of HQ was there, understand  every head of ninja department and 'undercover' agents working in the government: Sarutobi of course, as 'head of head', Sensei, and behind him Zabuza and Raidou, Tsunade and Shizune, Ibiki, various heads of departments, others dudes I had never worked with. Vince was in a corner with another sniper. I thought I saw the head of the Computing section, also known as 'King Geek'; even Sanzo was out of his den.

A guy I had never seen before caught my attention, and he was doing everything in his power to do so - who in his right mind would have hair of such a flashy blood red color?

Sensei nodded to us, and Gen, Kodia and me went behind him with the rest of the team. Zabuza glanced my way - it smelled like an after-meeting chat. My parka was open - no time to shrug the uniform on and it was warmer inside than outside.

Sarutobi coughed, and the last discussions died down at once. He spoke from his seat, frowning, and suddenly he appeared old to me. It hurt.

"As everyone here knows, the underground's movements have increased lately - I would even go as far as saying we're facing a crisis."

There had been no move, no surprised gasp, no hurried murmurs, though this was the first time it was said officially and out loud - every single person here knew this already. Sandaime continued.

"We've had rather worrisome news over the last few hours - and this, without speaking about the hack of our database, which turned out to be far more thorough and deep than we first thought. The Police Computers' system has also been targeted."
The following silence was tense. It was definitely bad. This entire story was beginning to stink like death.

Sandaime gestured to the red-haired guy - re-christened Carrot Top.

"Agent Mattura, if you please..."

Carrot Top stood up. His eyes were of a blue too pale to be natural.

"Agent Reno Mattura, of Internal Security, directly under Fugaku Uchiha's orders. I work for ANBU since my assignment to this post. To keep it short, I work as a bodyguard to Uchiha - verification of his mail, both work and private, verification of the people he meets, that kind of stuff. We get at least a good five death threats a week, and an assassination attempt every couple of months."

This guy had a rather interesting life - I was speaking as much of Uchiha as of Agent Reno... Hey, wait a second, how came Itachi was in a public high school then? If his sire was under that much surveillance, then all of his family had to be under the same treatment - and a public high school wasn't looking like the best place to be secure to me. Zabuza frowned at his side - I could have bet that he had ended stumbling onto the same question as me. Reno continued.

"The letter we received this very morning was the same as any other death threat - but this one was signed."

The large screen behind Sarutobi switched on - the picture of a letter was projected on. There was a zoom, and the signature could easily be read by everyone.
Sensei tensed, and the whole team behind, and me, too, more or less managed to control his reaction. Kodia growled low in his throat.

"It had been given by a courier – with no tracking number. This afternoon at 1552, the vehicle habitually used by Uchiha exploded in the government car parks. At 1718, an explosive mechanism got blown up by a bomb squad in front of the Uchiha's household. Those two attempts were claimed by this mail."

Sarutobi spoke again. "My thanks you Agent Mattura, Ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that the message here is pretty clear."

Talking went on for a few minutes, and then finally only the heads stayed behind. The team followed Sensei, but we couldn't get out quickly enough for my tastes. The name of the one who had signed this letter seemed to laugh at us, staying quietly on the screen.

Otsuka Shigeru






Sensei gathered us up in his office, visibly stressed. He ended turning toward Zabuza and me.

"I want the both of you to keep an eye on Uchiha Jr. at school – if I'm not mistaken in saying that he's in some of our classes?"

"No."

Zabuza only shook his head.

"Then you can go. I'm putting another team on his tracks for when he's out of school."

We saluted with a brief nod before leaving. I passed a hand over my face. Great. Wonderful. Of all the things that could have happen... I sighed hoping to be discreet.

"I'm seeing you home," said Zabuza.

"It's on the other side of the city...," I said, a bit surprised.

"It's that or you freezing in place..."

The car park had been deserted by human life, and was now a reserve for mechanical life. Zabuza folded his frame behind the wheel of a bright new looking car.

"Huh? That's not your car."

"No, it's Haku's - come on, climb on, I don't have all night."

I obeyed without another word. The streets were empty - seeing the temperature, it was normal; then again, after 9 p.m. a night in the beginning of the week, in winter, there wasn't often people out. I slouched a bit more into my seat, my thoughts going to the next problem at hand. I ended passing both hands over my face all the while sighing, noticing two things in the move: I smelled Iruka's shampoo, and his sweater could easily be seen as my parka was wide open.

"And now we got to baby-sit the King... this guy can't stand my face..." I mumbled.

"You did something to him?"

"Seems like he just can't stand my existence, that's all..."

But Itachi had become strangely indifferent to my existence since I was with Iruka - since I had began to hang around him, truth to be told. Sigh, another mystery on us... The silence coming from the driver was rather uncharacteristic. And then he spit it out.

"How come you got Iruka's sweater on your back?"

The question took me aback. I had forgotten about Zabu-man's very good memory - he had had to have recognized the sweater as soon as I had stepped into the meeting room. At the same time, I think there's only one guy in all Konoha who got a sweater with a print of a tribal-style dolphin.

"Huh?"

"C'mon, you're not gonna tell me you didn't go to the gorgeous goth who stole your heart...?"

"Gorgeous? Aren't you supposed to be gay, you...? And why would I have Uchiha's cousin's sweater on me?"

"You know…clothes... in the middle of the action..."

The face made by the guy behind the wheel needed no subtitles. I rolled my eyes, the move totally lost into the darkness of the car - public light had to be rethought entirely.

"Geeze, how many times will I have to tell you... she got a man already, I don't steal girlfriends from anyone and I didn't do anything to her! You get special courses from Genma to say stupid things or what?"

"Hey, I was just joking - especially since I've got a feeling like we're not about to laugh a lot now..."

"...you said it...," I sighed again.

The rest of the short trip was spent in silence. I was feeling empty, tired, and suddenly too old - or suddenly too young.

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My street was dead, buried six feet under layers of darkness and silence. The house seemed to loom hazardously over the road, as if waiting for its prey to pass in its reach, as looking like a monster straight out of a legend... Zabuza stopped next to the mailbox which read 'Hatake' - the name unreadable and invisible in the street light, the thin ray of orange coming from the lamppost adding to the place's hostility.

"See you tomorrow."

"Yeah…unfortunately… 'tomorrow."

I slammed the door shut, and Zabuza left, the purring of his car soon lost into the heavy silence of the street.

I walked to the front-door only when the silence settled in. I was going to go directly to bed - no desire to do anything else.

I didn't want to sleep here tonight. The door opened without a sound, and closed in the same fashion. I wanted to go back to Iruka's. I climbed up the stairs without switching on the light - what was the point? Everything was always at the same place. I would have even gone to Rin's, but I decided to leave them to be all lovey-dovey - and me sleeping in Rin's bed with them wasn't the definition of 'lovey-dovey'. I let my things fall on the floor as they will, my clothes landing here and there - but not Iruka's sweater. I wanted to go to his place, and not into a house that's not even haunted - not anymore. My room was cold, my sheets were frozen; I must have forgotten to put the heater on when I left this morning. I curled around his sweater, my nose into the hood, my nose into his odor still in the material. This house had never really been my home I could feel that with a painful accuracy tonight, more so than usual.

My stomach wailed. It wasn't important - when had I eaten last? Not this morning, not at lunch - Iruka's cookies were all I had in my stomach since... I had forgotten to eat last night too... It was nothing, and not important enough for me to get up now. I had spent longer without eating more than cookies, and it had never hindered me to sleep.

I don't know if I slept quietly or not. Morpheus came to me quickly.

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I dreamt that night. It's rare enough to be noted.

Sorry, didn't use the right words. As any other sleeping human, I dream every night - it's just that I rarely remember them; the nightmare/memory is in another category. The 'normal' dreams were almost always forgotten when I woke up. But so I dreamed, and I could remember it once I was awake. Maybe it was because I had gone to sleep earlier than usual.

I began by seeing again, in dream, Genma making a fool of himself and embarrassing me in the lockers room and annoying me to death to know if my 'girlfriend' was cute or not. I knew where I was - as in, the lockers - but everything was kinda blurry, even Genma was. And it wasn't Zabuza who put his head out of the shower to ask if I had done Emily, but a mix of Zabuza and Obito - and it was feeling right.

I'm pretty sure Zabuza-Obito from the dream winked at me before the dream went faster and directly to the next scene.

I knew I was on one of the pedestrian streets downtown Konoha, even if it wasn't looking like it at all. I knew the street was crowded, but it was only... how to say? An indistinct mass, just impression of people... The only person who was perfectly defined was the one walking with me, his sweater printed dolphin on his back.
You know how work dreams, it looks like you're in a story, and you're following the action without seemingly being able to do anything. Here, I knew I was walking with Iruka into Konoha's streets to go to the ramen stand at the bottom of the Hokage's Monument - even if said stand was on the other side of the Monument in the reality. I knew it was Iruka next to me, even if I didn't see his face once.
And then suddenly there was only Iruka and me in the street, and a third person appeared a bit further that where we were. The person made a large waving motion of the hand, a large grin on his face.

Not that the grin was that surprising. Obito was always smiling.

This instant did a lot of good to me - because in my dream Iruka knew Obito, and Obito knew Iruka and they were both here in this street and it was right, usual, and in a second Obito was going to walk to us and tease us as a hello before we all went to eat ramen enough to burst...

There was another fast forward.

I dreamt of flames, and of suffocating warmth. My mask was half melting on my face, the straps were overheated, and the left sleeve of my uniform was littered with tiny red and hot dots. I had to find someone into this hell, I had to - at this moment I woke up in a beat, the dream still there in my mind.

The last feelings left by the dream were still there too. I wasn't Iruka I was looking for in the flaming inferno.

OoOoOoOoOoO End 18th part OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
 
One good news : I almost caught back the french version, so chapters will in a very close future, come at almost the same time in both languages.