Rating: PG-13 for some language

Pairings: None

Spoilers: Nothing that hasn't been spoiled in previous chapters

Disclaimer: Still got nada

Summary/Snippet: The speech had generally gone over well with the people but before the Sandaime had made his announcement a small contingent had taken it upon themselves to express the feelings of the villagers upon Kakashi's house.

Fire in Your Eyes

By Psychick

Chapter 8: Strategy

Citizens of Konoha

In the past 24 hours many of you have become aware of rumors that remind us of the horrors from a year and a half ago. Such a tragedy as the appearance of the Kyuubi can do little else but bring worry, fear, and anger to the fore-front of our memories as the loss of so many of our comrades and citizens was a hard one to bear. We remember their sacrifices with honor and pride as their deaths were fitting of shinobi, protecting the village and the people that they loved, entrusting that their own will of fire would burn bright in those they left behind. We also remember them with grief as bonds so broken can never be re-forged in their entirety, though we may create new ones.

Therefore, out of respect for those lost, I, your Hokage, will not insult you by denying that which you have already heard, nor will I deny the truth that this was kept secret. On the night of the Kyuubi attack, to prevent the village from total annihilation, that creature was captured and sealed inside the body of a young infant, one Uzumaki Naruto. Furthermore, he has been kept within the village limits and raised much as your own children have. His identity, and indeed the very knowledge that he held the Kyuubi within him, was only known to a select few. Many have questioned this decision since hearing of it, citing the risk I have chosen to take by allowing the Kyuubi to live among us and that it may bring disaster once again to our village. However, I implore you to understand both my own reasoning as well as the Yondaime's, for it was the former Hokage's sacrifice while sealing the demon away that saved our village. This boy, this child, is one of your own- a rightful citizen of Konoha. I hid his identity and the existence of the Kyuubi so that he, too, may inherit the will of fire that those who came before him have passed down and live as normal a life as possible. That he may grow to love and cherish the bonds he makes with his comrades, just as you and your children have learned and will learn, and that he will choose to protect this village by his own volition rather than by a fate which has been forced upon him.

With this in mind, the council and I have reached a decision. Henceforth, by military law and the power of the Hokage, no citizen of Konoha—shinobi or otherwise—shall reveal to any persons within the village of Konoha, the Land of Fire, other nations or villages, allied or otherwise, who do not have prior knowledge concerning the identity or existence of the host of the Kyuubi who that host is. This includes, but is not limited to, the host himself. Furthermore, the punishment for any who choose to disregard the new legislation shall be discussed by the council and decided on by the Hokage. The minimum sentence for those who disobey shall begin at a lifetime prison sentence, with the maximum punishment including the death penalty, as well as a fine from 10,000 to 400,000 yen for those to whom the information is revealed.

Despite this ruling it is my greatest desire that the council and myself never need act on this punishment. I ask, as your leader and one who has worked tirelessly to keep this village and this country safe, that you trust in our decision.

Naruto squirmed in Kakashi's arms as he played with the collar of the copy-nin's jounin vest in one hand and held onto his cup full of milk loosely in the other. Occasionally he would swing it up to take a sip and in the process would nearly clobber his guardian, but if his continuous babbling was any indication he didn't seem to notice the danger he was putting the copy-nin in. Kakashi couldn't make heads or tales of what the blond seemed to be discussing but it appeared that buildings were the main topic as Naruto pointed to several as they passed. The silver-haired jounin would make various noises of agreement and even asked, "Is that so?" once or twice. Naruto, willing to acknowledge his valiant attempts to follow the conversation, would direct the jounin's attention somewhere else with a wild hand gesture that forced the adult to duck.

The toddler's exuberance came as a relief to Kakashi. It had been a week since the Hokage's speech and the old man had only just decided that things were calm enough to allow Naruto to venture out of confinement, which was not something the blond dealt well with. Once he came out of his slightly unnerving quiet stage, during which Kakashi constantly worried that something psychological and irreversible had happened, he began throwing tantrums when he wasn't allowed outside. Despite this he had become clingy and even though the apartment wasn't very big if Kakashi left his side for more than a few minutes the water works would start up. The teen had been at his wits end trying to come up with ways to distract the toddler and at the same time find ways for his own self to relax. The extra guard, who was rotated constantly and varied between ANBU and others the Hokage trusted from the clans who had offered their services, was sometimes helpful in offering advice or giving the Sharingan user a break, but more often than not Naruto was unhappy and as the week wore on even the others' often limited pool of suggestions dried up.

Finally word had come that the two could wander out. Kakashi had been glad to hear the news, but it created a whole new set of problems. Whereas before he wouldn't have thought twice about stepping outside the door, that morning he had relentlessly grilled the poor Hyuuga jounin on the state of the village. He debated on whether he should take a bag out of things he might need for Naruto or whether it would become unwanted and cumbersome if some infuriated villager decided that an attempt at murder was worth more than their own freedom. He had already mentally mapped out all of Konoha's clan compounds and which ones the Hokage had said could be somewhat trusted, which hadn't made it clear whose side they were on and which could definitely be a threat. That severely limited his options of where he could go and in the end he decided not to stay out too long, not to take a bag and to check on the state of the old house.

The short trip was turning out to be more informative than the Hyuuga could have ever been. Things seemed fairly normal, as most damage had been largely prevented or quickly fixed, and people were going about their business as if they had never been infuriated or frightened out of their minds. There were even a few kids running around unattended here and there. As long as they went unrecognized, people didn't give Kakashi or Naruto a second glance.

It was when the other passing pedestrians did recognize one of the two that the difference between 'before' and 'after' became clear. Several people actually stopped once they spotted the small makeshift family and spun around to quickly walk away and turn down a different street. A few mothers called their children over and pulled them close with a glare in Kakashi's direction, and other people turned towards those nearby and hissed a few words in their ear. Fortunately, keeping your distance seemed to be the thing to do.

Naruto noticed none of this, happily oblivious to the chaos he was causing around him as he continued his Grand Tour of Konoha (trademarked).

"Ta! Ta!" he insisted as he pushed against Kakashi's shoulder.

"Okay, okay, you want to get down. I get it," his guardian answered as he swung the almost-two-year-old around and set him on his feet. He held onto the hand not busy with the sippy cup, although Naruto tried to pull away at first until the teen convinced him it wasn't going to happen. Kakashi's height made it a bit of a stretch for the blond, so he leaned over just enough to look completely awkward and they continued to their destination at a much slower pace.

Kakashi's original assessment of thinking about their home as "the old house" turned out to be accurate. Even from a short distance it was obvious there was a lot of damage, but he had expected it from what Hokage-sama had told him a few days before. The speech had generally gone over well with the people, at least in the sense that most of them were willing to accept the word and law of the leader and strongest shinobi in Konoha, but before the Sandaime had made his announcement a small contingent had taken it upon themselves to express the feelings of the villagers upon Kakashi's house. Unfortunately, though the small uprising had been dealt with as quickly as possible, the rather organized nature of the whole event suggested that the vandals had been influenced by possible Root members and therefore meant it had largely been an attempt by Danzo to get his coup off the ground.

The coup may have been unsuccessful, but the goal of the crowd that the one-armed man had used certainly had been achieved. A small explosive had been used on the north side of the building and a small rather burnt pile of wooden planks was gathered in the front yard. All the windows were broken, the door hung halfway off it's hinges and what portions of the roof had survived the blast seemed to sag down. Graffiti littered the walls as well, although Kakashi suspected that part of the vandalism had come later from the younger citizens of Konoha. The messages and drawings painted along the house were all different, but the main theme could be best summarized as, "Get the fuck out."

Kakashi sighed as Naruto pulled him towards the entrance of their home. He had just finished repairing the last of the damage from the Kyuubi a few months ago too. They stepped inside and, with a quick once over to make sure it was relatively safe, the copy-nin let the blond go free to roam around.

"Don't go outside," he warned, "Stay in here." He pointed around what used to be their living room to make himself clear to the toddler, but Naruto seemed more interested in the toys scattered about on the floor than in paying attention. He debated on whether it was a good idea to just leave the kid there before deciding that he would just keep a very careful ear out as he moved about the house.

They actually hadn't lost too much from inside the house. Most of their essentials had been brought to the small apartment by others and Kakashi had made sure to ask for a good chunk of it as he hadn't been sure when they would be getting out and everyone had been good natured enough to comply. The clothes they had left here had gone largely unnoticed and untouched, although to his annoyance someone had raided his stores of Kunai, shuriken, wire, tags and the like kept in his closet. He hadn't bothered to ask for the food in the kitchen as there had been a store only a block away from where they were staying and most of it, all of the non-perishable stuff any way, was still usable. The table and chairs were still intact, although they had been knocked over and the silver-haired teen wondered about getting them moved to their new home, wherever that would be. Then he sighed again at the thought of moving.

"Naruto," he poked his head into the living room, "Do you want a snack?"

The blonde perked up at the mention of food. "Kaka!" he said, motioning a little with his still-pudgy hands, which in this context meant he was in the mood for crackers. His guardian nodded and set about filling a small bowl for the boy to eat while he spent time exploring a little more.

It wasn't that he couldn't see how completely unsalvageable the house was going to be, at least on the budget he had now, but he was loathe to give it up because he had thought he would always live in the home the Hatake family owned. Not the small two person family that had almost been forced on him, but the one which, a very long time ago, had held three people before his mother died from the flu that had gotten out of control because she didn't take care of herself when he was three and his father…

So there were a few bad memories associated with the place, but there were a few half-memories and blurred images of a happier time that he was afraid he'd lose all together with time and distance from their origin. Even after the Kyuubi had appeared he had stretched what savings he had to repair the place so he and Naruto could continue to live there and had been relieved when it turned out he had gotten lucky with a lot less damage than he had thought. But even just looking at the outside of the house made it obvious that even if he dipped into the allowance he got for Naruto a little, he definitely didn't have enough money to bring the place up to a livable condition anytime soon. The only thing he could do was sell it and buy, or more likely rent, a new place.

Of course, that was even assuming he could sell the dump it had become. Even in a place like Konoha where newcomers were very rare when they could get a visa at all, someone was always getting married or growing old enough to buy their own place, so finding someone who needed it would not be a problem. It was finding someone who could then afford to fix the place back up and now, he thought with a grimace, someone who would be willing to live in the former residency of the demon fox. If he thought he could get someone else to sell it in his place he probably would have, but the words "Die bastard fox" splashed in dark red across the front of the house was sort of a dead give away. He might even have to just cut his losses and forget about the whole idea, he thought, but he was hoping for the extra money to offset the cost of the new place.

His frustration with the whole thing did not lessen as he continued walking through the house. The toys Naruto was playing with were largely broken beyond repair and a few times the blonde approach Kakashi in the hopes that he might be able to fix it only to look sadly at the damaged piece when the teen had to toss I in a garbage bag and try to find something else to play with. Eventually the toddler settled on his set of blacks, which the jounin managed to bring together from their scattered positions around the room. Kakashi was thankful that the blonde's favorite toy was still intact, although building blocks were rather indestructible, because the rising sense of guilt every time he had to trash another toy was making it hard to look the blonde in the eye.

Naruto's room was ruined too. The futon was ripped to shreds, the sliding door was in pieces as if someone had kicked it in, the small collection of books that had been kept in here torn open, pages scattered everywhere, and even more graffiti. Kakashi clenched his fists and closed his eyes to the death threats splashed along the walls. The anger he felt at the fact that someone wanted to hurt Naruto flashed up inside him and sent his heart racing. He took a moment to breath, to slow the pounding in his chest.

After a year and a half of taking care of sensei's son, Kakashi had mostly learned how to deal with his feelings of guilt. He had made mistakes all the time while taking care of the boy. On top of that Naruto was definitely not a child to sit around and do nothing and his curiosity often got the better of him in ways that were potentially harmful, but necessary to his pursuit of education. Kakashi couldn't hover over the toddler every time he tried to walk to make sure the boy didn't fall over, Yoshino-san had pointed out. It was going to happen until Naruto built up some muscle and coordination. The most they could do would be to make sure there was nothing too dangerous at Naruto's level and patch up the little injuries as they happened.

At first it had done nothing to ease the panic he felt when his guilt surfaced. He started catching himself in a vicious circle—feeling guilt for not being mindful of every action Naruto took or of finding out he hadn't taken care of the boy properly; then immediately suppressing the emotion in an attempt to keep himself in control and not make more mistakes; then feeling guilty for reacting so coldly to Naruto, the memory of the first time he held the infant and nearly dropped him always at the forefront of his mind. Sometimes he could wrestle himself out of the emotional feedback loop, but for the times when he didn't the Naras became a great support.

It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as it did, but Shikaku was the best at knocking some sense into the younger man. His history as a shinobi, as well as—to Kakashi's surprise- a level of intellect far beyond anyone the jounin had known contributed to Shikaku's own insecurities about raising a child. The copy ninja had the distinct impression that the older jounin was far better adjusted than he, despite being raised during a period of just as much turmoil as Kakashi, but the shadow ninja eventually admitted to some concern that he overanalyzed everything Shikamaru did for the potential of its lethality.

"How do you make yourself stop?" Kakashi had asked.

Shikaku had grinned. "Counteraction. When I can't take the images anymore, I pick the kid up and bring him out to do the most mindless activity I could think of. You'd be amazed how fascinating clouds can be when you focus hard enough. Works wonders for calming him down, too."

Kakashi hadn't been able to find his own method of counteraction, but gradually the silver-haired teen had come to face the fact that he didn't have to take responsibility every time Naruto's block towers fell into the boy's lap or he tripped on his way from one piece of furniture to the next. In fact, lately Naruto had no qualms about moving himself and all his toys around if he felt he was being smothered, although he never got much father than a foot or two before he was enjoying himself again. It had forced Kakashi to reexamine himself and his actions, both then and in the past with Rin and he began to recognize how suffocating he had been and why their teamwork had suffered for it.

Anger was different.

It was going to be infuriatingly hard, but he needed to look at the words with an objective eye, to asses the intent of the messages with a shinobi's perspective. The past week hadn't been just about hiding for Kakashi, but a chance to analyze his actions and bring him back into the mindset of not just guardian but also bodyguard for the young blond. Lashing out in anger at the nearest threat was something irate parents did, something he couldn't afford to do any longer. He had promised himself that he wouldn't make the same mistakes as he had at the Nara household and that meant keeping his emotions in check.

At first he had been nervous when he came to that conclusion. It sounded an awful lot like the kind of words his younger self would have used and betraying Obito like that was the last thing the silver-haired shinobi wanted. It took an intense amount of contemplation (sleep had been a luxury that night, but Naruto had been waking up with nightmares anyway so Kakashi hadn't been too bothered by it) and eventually decided that he wasn't regressing back to the emotional repression of his younger teen years. He didn't have to erase his emotions to follow the rules, but he couldn't let himself be ruled by them anymore.

Once the jounin had calmed down as much as he thought he would be able to he opened his eyes once again and studied the threats. There were no clues as to who had left them, or at least nothing visible to him, but Kakashi had expected that. Instead he focused on the wording and the way the graffiti had been painted on. There was definitely anger in most of the writing, evidenced by the sharp angles of the characters, or the way some characters had been stressed so much that the paint ran together and made it difficult to read. Overall, however, the threats seemed vague and poorly thought out. The people who had written this certainly intended to hurt Naruto if they ever met him, and some might even go so far as to commit murder, but the copy-nin couldn't see anything that conveyed a plan to seek Naruto out.

His assessment done, and seeing that there wasn't anything to salvage here, Kakashi moved on to his own room. It wasn't nearly so bad as Naruto's. It looked like someone had gone through his things to see if they could find any more weapons or supplies, but that was pretty much it. Things had been tossed around some, but otherwise the damage was minimal.

It was the next room that he dreaded entering.

He had known as soon as they approached the house what wall the explosive had been up against, but had opted not to think about it. Now though, he wondered what could possibly have been their objective. To blow up the house? If anyone in the crowd had half a brain they would have realized that would easily endanger their neighbors, both of whom were actually civilians and were probably already scared out of their wits, concerned for their own safety. Plus, if that were really the goal, then obviously a bigger explosive should have been used. The idiot who had done it hadn't even damaged a room that would make sense. Naruto's room? Okay that would have been obvious. His own? That would have probably been a personal attack against him or the idea that he would agree to shelter the Kyuubi. The front door? Fine, they wanted to make an entrance. But this? It was like they had randomly slapped the tag on the side of the house and said, "Hey, let's see what this does!"

Kakashi stood outside the door trying to steel himself for what he was about to see. It didn't matter how bad the damage was, the fact was that it existed and he would just have to salvage what he could and put the rest behind him. His emotions were useless here. There was nothing that could be done about it and so he would get the job done and move on.

His hand finally reached out to open the door to his father's study.

The damage was about what he expected. Part of the ceiling had caved in with no support to hold it up. The shelf on the far left had collapsed, most of the scrolls caught under it but plenty scattered on the floor crinkled and half unrolled and in some cases scorched from the heat of the explosion. The shelf on the right, which was bigger, hadn't collapsed, but almost all of the scrolls there had fallen out and had unrolled themselves across the floor. Kakashi could make out a footprint or two on some of the pages. The shelves on the far wall, across from the doorway, were partially blown apart and those scrolls that hadn't caught fire and left ashes scattered across the floor were shredded from the woodwork ripping through them.

All of that was bad enough. What made the whole thing even worse was what should have been in between the two shelves, where now there was a gigantic hole looking out into the window of the Hoshino's. His father's desk had been utterly smashed with no pieces left bigger than the size of his forearm scattered around the room.

A desk was an odd thing to hold sentimental value for a shinobi but after his tanto it was probably his father's most prized possession. It had been a wedding present from his father-in-law, Kakashi's grandfather. Kakashi's mother, and consequently most of her family on that side, had been civilians, carpenters for generations and her parents had never seemed to approve of the man she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with. The White Fang had worked tirelessly to change that, seemingly with unsuccessful attempts the entire time the two had dated and then been engaged. The teen's grandfather had never come to accept the two coming together but on the day of his parent's wedding his grandfather had presented his mother with a beautifully hand-carved necklace of a hawk, her favorite animal, which Kakashi kept safe under a floorboard he had found as a child, and his father had received the desk. It was solid black oak with intricate design work along the trim, including symbols representing the Hatake clan and his father's own nickname, as well as miniture carvings in the front of the drawers each depicting a shinobi legend. It was obviously handmade by the old man, and even though it was two more years before Kakashi's grandfather had died of a stroke his father never figured out what he had done to change his father-in-law's opinion of him.

Even during the war, right before his mother died, Kakashi had vague memories of his father smiling as he touched the woodwork or sitting down to frantically study a new technique before he was rushed off to the next mission. When he had been really young, the teen knew from the pieces of stories he remembered his mother and father telling him, his father had sometimes held him in his lap as he explained what was on the scroll. Kakashi had thought that his father had done it to help him graduate from the academy faster, to give him an edge on the theory even if he couldn't put the techniques to practice. Naruto had made him question that hypothesis, however. Kakashi could no longer count the number of times he had been brushing up on the theory of an old technique—or even just reading a book, which turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable hobby he had picked up on those nights he couldn't go out because the kid had a bedtime—and Naruto had crawled over demanding to be picked up so he could see what his guardian was doing. The teen wondered how many times he had done the same to his father.

The desk was one of the last tangible things that connected him to the man and some asshole had blown it to smithereens without a second thought. He stood there for a moment, not moving, not thinking, not doing anything before his fists slowly clenched again and he turned around to walk out of the room without having done anything, sliding the door closed behind him.

When he walked across the hall to the living room Naruto was still happily playing with the blocks, picking out a cracker every now and again to munch on. His towers never got very tall before he happily knocked them down, but he was content and looked up as Kakashi sat down across from him, legs folded, and began playing too. The blonde watched as the blocks piled up in Kakashi's skillful hands, now five, now seven, now ten before they collapsed. Naruto laughed with delight and the smile on the boy's faced calmed the teen down a portion, although it did nothing to ease the tightness in his chest.

He couldn't stay mad with the infant around. In general when he was caring for Naruto lashing out was unacceptable and giving in to his guilt when the blond looked up at him with disappointed eyes after being dealt a small consequence would have been disastrous for everyone. The kinds of trouble the small boy would get into if he ever learned how to manipulate his jounin guardian was likely to be the stuff of urban legends if his antics as a toddler were anything to go by. So while Kakashi still wasn't perfect it was always easier when he was around the boy, conscious of the effect what he did would have on the toddler.

Naruto started building his own two or three block towers again and they stayed that way for a while, Kakashi silently swallowing his anger and knowing in the back of his mind that the emotion was merely covering up a deeper, more devastating feeling, as Naruto laughed with each collapse of a new structure. Eventually he became more interested in his guardian's play than his own and crawled around into the teen's lap, snuggling his head on the young man's chest. Kakashi paused at the affection the toddler never seemed to have trouble showing him before wrapping the boy in a one-armed hug as he continued his steady block building. Before long the tension and anger had run out and something wet slid down his face.

"Stupid Obito," he muttered as he continued what he was doing, but his towers only reached about six blocks now before they collapsed.

Naruto looked up, having heard the phrase before but not understanding it's meaning. When Kakashi wouldn't look back at him he laid his head back down and began to suck his thumb.

Geh. SO MUCH ANGST. And PARAGRAPHS. Where's all the dialogue, woman! I was never really happy with parts of this, but since this was one of the first sections I got done I have stared at it approximately a billion times and have never come up with something better. So, goal of the next chapter: less angst, more stupid fluffy Naruto antics. And probably better grammar. Don't know how I did this time around, but I have to get up early for work and I still wanted to post, so there was less proofreading. Maybe someday I'll revise it, but FFN sure doesn't make that kind of thing easy.

Also, I realize that the punishment for breaking what I have always called "The Code of Silence" seems rather harsh, but when I was thinking about it I came to the conclusion that something drastic must have been proposed, or Naruto would have heard some stupid rumor floating around his class about what he supposedly was. Kids pay attention to what adults say, even when they don't seem to be, so the only way it wouldn't have come up is if the adults were so scared about the consequences that no one ever talked about it. With this is mind, I kind of wonder if the punishment shouldn't be much harsher.

Reviews are welcome. I stand by what I said about not being overly motivated by them, but I will admit that I get a fuzzy feeling inside, even when it's just constructive criticism. I usually try to reply to everyone who reviews, too, at least for the first couple of months.