Kitsune no Akuryō

The Will of Fire!!

Welcome to the next chapter. I know I'm late, but we're still in July so that's a plus. I actually had this whole thing written and ready (including author's notes), but I wanted to hit on the right time frame for publishing this chapter (Look where that's gotten me :D) and then vacation rolled around and I stark forgot...   Anywho---I still am super excited that I can start using some good Naruto pictures. It's been difficult while Kitsune was in the ANBU, but now things have changed. The last day at the Academy was a bust. Kitsune definitely came in as the dead-last, as planned, but if he's failed to graduate, he's failed his mission of protecting Sasuke. What will happen then?

     Kitsune, now under the pseudonym of Naruto, was sitting on his bed staring at the walls when he heard a knock on the door. Upon opening it he found Kakashi standing there, leaning against the frame. Kakashi had liked to treat him delicately over the pasted year but at the same time tried to let Kitsune figure things out on his own. It was rather confusing as far as Kitsune was concerned; however, on top of that Kakashi was only one storey below Kitsune, so he came to visit more times than the boy cared for.

     "I heard how the exam went today. We'll find some way for things to work out."

     He stayed silent as Kakashi went on, "We need your help in the village. We need you---"

     The boy tried to speak, but the sounds wouldn't come out. he pulled on a sleeve instead. He remembered the urgent question.

     "What is it, Naruto?"

     "What is the Will of Fire?"

     "The Will of Fire?" he collected his thoughts, "Well, it's---"

      Kakashi paused for a moment while Naruto looked expectantly at him, not thinking this to be a hard question. Apparently, it was. The difficulty was that Kakashi had perhaps thought about what the Will of Fire was, but it was more that the concept was ingrained into his being as a ninja of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Any child from the village learned what the Will of Fire was, not through hearing an explanation, but watching his elders: what they did, how they acted. Naruto, however, had never been lucky enough to see it or else he had forgotten what he had seen of it in what remained as part of Kakashi's memory but not the boy's.

     Kakashi could probably talk about it to any other villager, but with Naruto, it was like talking to a Kiri-nin. The Will of Fire was like loyalty to the village, but it wasn't just that. It was also caring for one's comrades, but ninja rules, Kakashi knew too well, also said that comrades were to be left behind for the sake of a mission. It had something to do with honour, but there was more to it. It held the tradition of the village. Kakashi found himself saying, "To always burn."

     Naruto looked at him as if he had lost his mind, and when Kakashi thought about it, the words sounded kind of morbid, so he continued on a little too quickly, "To always burn; to carry on the village's values with vigour."

     "What are those?"

     Just as before Kakashi knew that the values of the village could not simply be told or explained. They had to be seen and felt. He gave the hardest answer for any child, "You'll have to find that out for yourself."

     Kitsune looked down and nodded once before he slipped passed Kakashi and was out the door. The lights were still on, and the door had yet to be locked, but the boy jumped to the next roof before disappearing into the night.

     Kakashi turned out the light and locked the door. He did have a spare key, unbeknownst to the boy.

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