Documenting Acceptable Levels of Insanity for the Shinobi Lifestyle
by aishuu

NOTE: This is based on the Saki-verse, which was created several years ago by the vastly talented Asuka Kureru. Thanks for inviting others to play (though it did take more than three years for me to finish this damned thing). Credit is due to chrysa for beta work, and sophiap for acting as my main sounding board.
CANON: In the nebulous Saki-verse, where Sasuke is retrieved at some point from Orochimaru without too much of the canon second arc happening.

Part 1:

I have the most difficult job in Konoha - and no, it's not Hokage. I'm the psychiatrist who gets to decide if a ninja is too crazy for a mission. Not if they're crazy - if they're too crazy. They don't actually call me a counselor. Instead, I'm on the payroll as "shinobi evaluator."

Whatever. I'm the last line of defense between the village and yet another ninja going over the edge, and I'll do the job to the best of my ability – and with the arsenal of many, many drug prescriptions.

There is a direct correlation between the strength of a shinobi and how insane they are. Granted, becoming a shinobi requires a certain amount of insanity, but someone needs to know when to draw the line. I get to decide if their insanity is acceptable. Basically, do they still know how to hold a kunai, and can they point it in the right direction. If they become fixated on porn or peeping, big deal. Having a jounin go completely crackers is bad, though. Really screwed up with Orochimaru, but I was still new at the time.

I've done better since, though there was a rather unpleasant episode with Uchiha Itachi. Still, my efforts are why Idame Ukyou isn't a village-wide name (when a ninja starts obsessing with fire and acid, it's never a good thing) and why Morino Ibiki is still considered active-duty personnel. It's a delicate balancing act, and I often don't get cases until it's nearly too late.

Doesn't mean I always enjoy it, though. Shinobi tend to be paranoid types, as the series of kunai marks in my wall can attest. It's always the ones that need help the most that are the most disagreeable. When I heard Uchiha Sasuke was spotted in town dressed in drag, I took a handful of aspirin, with the knowledge the problem was somehow going to land in my lap.

Sure enough, Tsunade showed up in my office two days later, a frown on her face. It was right as I was preparing to close the office for the day, but she didn't even ask for permission before entering. She walked over to my coffee maker, filling a cup without saying anything, and tossed it back like it was sake.

I see her every week, Tuesdays at two, which is why she was so familiar with the place. She has a bit of a gambling addiction and is fixated on her looks, but it could be a lot worse. She's Hokage, and that level of ninja mastery doesn't come without price. Narcissism isn't that bad, considering. Luckily she's also a trained medic nin and knows enough to let me do my job.

"Can I help you, Tsunade?" I asked. I never used honorifics with her since she had enough of an ego as it was. The last thing she needed was her counselor deferring to her.

She hmphed, rubbing the bridge of her nose with a carefully manicured hand before reaching up her shirt-sleeve and pulling out a a photograph, which she tossed into my lap. "We have a problem," she said, looking at me without humor.

The shot was a candid one, showing a pretty woman dressed in a frilly outfit. Cute girl, I thought, before looking closer and realizing I recognized her. I'd seen this girl before at my husband's shop, Ichiraku. I never would have pegged her as a ninja. A closer look showed callused hands, one of the first thing I checked when meeting someone. Shinobi were great with disguises, but there was little they could do about their hands.

Mentally, I summoned the memories of the girl and only was able to recall a whispery voice and excessive shyness. I wondered why she could be a source of concern, but I had learned to trust Tsunade's opinion (when gambling wasn't involved). She was familiar, I thought. I ran through my mental catalog of shinobi I'd met, and then remembered the most recent village gossip about the Uchiha heir.

"Damn, he's prettier than I ever was," I said with disgust.

"It's disturbing, isn't it?" Tsunade asked rhetorically. "I suppose you understand the cause of my concern."

I nodded my agreement. "This is the Uchiha boy, isn't it?"

"Uchiha Sasuke," Tsunade answered. She wore a slightly pinched look of dislike, which wasn't surprising. His whole 'throw everything Konoha stands for into the crapper and run to the insane Sannin with strange fetishes' episode hadn't been one of the brighter spots in the village's recent history.

I hadn't seen him much since, but the girl looked more familiar than I liked. I frowned, trying to place where I'd seen 'her.' The answer came a moment later. "Isn't she dating Uzumaki Naruto?" I asked.

"So it seems."

Very not good, I thought. "He would... know... right?" Naruto, that ramen vacuum cleaner I've known since he was knee-high, was basically a good kid. He was loud and prone to egotism, but his heart was in the right place. For his former teammate to fuck – maybe literally – around with him roused my maternal instincts.

"They are on the same team. I don't think he's going to be getting any... unpleasant surprises."

"Well, that's good, right?"

"I always thought Naruto was straight," Tsunade replied. "I'm wondering if Sasuke is changing just so Naruto can accept him."

While all relationships require compromise from both sides, I could see her point. A relationship where someone completely sublimated his own personality to cater to the desires of a dominant partner was no good for either of the individuals involved.

"I can evaluate Naruto as well," I told her, "and see what he thinks. If you still plan to name him as your successor, I'm going to need to start evaluating him, anyway."

Tsunade sighed. "That's another reason for my concern. The business with Sasuke is another great tool for the elders to use against me, politically."

Damn dried-up old sticks who couldn't see the forest for the trees, I couldn't help thinking.

"You need to completely evaluate the situation before you start thinking the worst," I said, the best method of reassurance I knew. Shinobi always looked toward the 'worst case' scenario, and as Hokage, Tsunade was the best at doing that. "It could be this is nothing more than... an exercise for his infiltration skills. The Uchiha were the best, right? Who knows what their training methods are like?"

She snorted, but I could see her turning the argument over in her head. After the Sound/Sand invasion, Konoha had a shortage of superior shinobi. The Uchiha – with his Sharingan – was one of Konoha's trump cards. The Council would be very wise to consider the ramifications of declaring him useless.

I went over to my desk schedule and checked to see what I had on docket. I could move Iruka's appointment to next week, and Anko would be fine if we missed a day – and that would leave tomorrow morning open. "Your apprentice was the third of that team, right?" I asked.

"Yes," Tsunade said suspiciously.

"Have Haruno Sakura here tomorrow, first thing. I'd like to get some background," I said. "Send Naruto an hour later, and I'll see Uchiha at lunchtime."

She nodded, and relaxed noticeably. She trusted me to help sort out this mess.

I wasn't sure if her confidence in my abilities made me proud or resentful. Because if the situation went south, I'd be the one held accountable.

Tsunade left a couple minutes later, and I decided to review what I already knew. Uchiha Sasuke was only a chuunin, and for him to be exhibiting such signs so young either meant he'd be a Hokage candidate in a couple years or the next S-class missing-nin intent on destroying Konoha. Considering who his elder brother was, I'd lay odds on the later.

I pulled out the file I'd created for Sasuke when we'd done his Academy exit interview. It was standard practice and helped make sure that most shinobi would see me as 'official' in case I had to be brought in.

I pushed my hair behind my ears as I evaluated what I'd written. I'd scribbled a red star in the upper left corner, indicating in my own special code that it was likely he'd eventually exhibit some severe signs of craziness. Good foresight on my behalf, though about half the shinobi had the mark in their folder.

Unfortunately, those little red stars had proven to have a seventy percent accuracy rating... and I was pretty sure the other thirty percent just weren't manifesting their insanity in obvious ways.

The file was thin, just stating the record of the interview. At twelve, Uchiha Sasuke had been a serious, intelligent, and decidedly uncommunicative child – which was the perfect temperament, according to the shinobi community. Labeled a prodigy, he already had very firm convictions on what he wanted to do. While his identification with the concept of becoming an 'Avenger' was worrisome, it was a natural reaction considering what had happened to him four years prior.

Uchiha Itachi was another big blunder on my behalf. I really should have figured out something was wrong before he killed over a hundred of his relatives.

Though actually, I think the problem might have been that Itachi was a touch too sane for all his power - no outlet. How many thirteen-year-olds have skills that rank in the Kage-class? When you added that to his clan duties (and I had never been overly fond on the Uchiha's expectations of their children), all that stress had to go somewhere. I think I'm one of the few people who realizes how lucky Konoha got off... Itachi only destroyed his clan, and not the entire village. And then he got the hell out, and hasn't troubled us since.

I will freely admit to being on the cynical side.

Sasuke did have other records from the civilian counselors (taken in the days following the Uchiha Massacre before he flat-out refused to speak to anyone interested in shrinking his head), which I probably should request. It was possible the cross-dressing was a late-stage manifestation of his trauma. Unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility.

Sitting back in my chair, I wondered if tomorrow was going to be one of those days I regretted participating in.

I was in my office, bright and squirrelly-early the next day (as my beloved husband liked to say – he tended to work late into the evenings, which made my morning-oriented schedule repugnant to him). As the sun rose over Konoha's walls, I sat by the window, sipping a cup of coffee and enjoying the peace and quiet.

My day was going to be an interesting one: Haruno Sakura would be arriving first thing in the morning, and then I'd have a brief break before reacquainting myself with Uzamaki Naruto, my husband's best customer and the loudest ninja I'd ever met. The day would be rounded out with a session with Uchiha Sasuke himself. I could already feel the headache forming.

At eight on the nose, a gentle knock sounded on my door. I went over and opened it, seeing my expected guest. "Come on in, Haruno-san," I told her, stepping out of the way so she could enter.

"Thank you, Ichiraku-sensei," Haruno Sakura replied as she obeyed, heading immediately for the chair most of my shinobi patients selected – the one with the back to the wall, and that allowed for a clear line of sight at both the window, door, and my chair. Paranoia, thy name is shinobi.

Haruno was a pretty enough girl, possessed of striking coloring, but she wasn't going to be the most seductive kunoichi of her generation – that would be Yamanaka Ino (or maybe 'Uchiha Saki' but I really didn't want to think about 'her' in those comparative terms). Haruno just didn't have that stunning something that raised a woman from pretty to beautiful. Not that I thought she minded (much), since she was an accomplished medical kunoichi.

"Would you like something to drink?" I offered. "I've got coffee, tea?"

"No, thank you," Haruno declined politely. "Tsunade-shishou said you wanted to speak with me about something?"

"Someone," I corrected. "I'm not asking you to betray any secrets, but concerns have arisen regarding one of your teammates."

I watched her carefully, adopting a concerned expression. She may have been one of the most promising upcoming kunoichi, but she sucked when it came to controlling her own body language. I noticed how she twitched, her nostrils flaring slightly as she struggled to keep control on her temper. I knew from my distant acquaintance with Naruto that Team Kakashi was very close to each other and wouldn't tolerate any form of threat to a teammate (threatening was reserved for in-team members).

"My teammates have always been eccentric," she said softly, glancing off to the side to avoid meeting my eyes.

"I can't say I'm surprised. You have Kakashi as a leader."

She nodded, folding her hands into her lap and focusing her attention on them. She had efficient hands, like most ninja, with her fingernails cut short and left unpolished. "He was a good teacher, for the most part. He may be unusual, but most jounin have their own quirks."

I had the choice of either trying to manipulate this conversation, or coming out with the truth. According to Tsunade, Haruno was brilliant, so trying to play games with would inevitably backfire. I decided to lay my cards on the table and hope she really did care for her teammates as much as I thought she did.

"Look, Haruno-san. You know that Uchiha Sasuke has taken to cross-dressing. I need to find out if it's merely a 'quirk,' as you put it, or symptomatic of something more serious," I said bluntly. "So don't bullshit me."

Her eyes narrowed with barely-controlled temper, and her facade of sweetness was stripped away. She did have mood swings, which were either the result of puberty or a deeper-seated issue. I wasn't about to borrow trouble; I haven't heard any complaints about her, so I wasn't going to look too closely.

"You want me to be honest with you, sensei?" she asked in a dangerously level tone of voice.

"It's the best policy. If Uchiha is unhinged, it's for the village's best interest that he be... dealt with," I replied, conveying a threat of my own. Not that I could do much aside from write a bad report and classify him as ineligible to be a shinobi. But for someone like Uchiha, whose identity revolved around his power as a ninja, that just might be the most powerful threat of all.

"Okay, write this down," she said. "It's not what you look like on the outside, but what you are on the inside that counts." Her smile dripped with rancid honey, and I could have sworn she actually sparkled. It was all I could do not to shudder; one Maito Gai once a week was more than enough. She was still smiling as she rose to her feet. "I hope that helps, sensei. I need to get to the hospital."

I watched as she left the room, mentally conceding the victory to her. Using that tried-and-true parental consolation was a brilliant stroke, not that I should have expected less of the genius apprentice of the Hokage. I couldn't argue with it, and it made a splendid zinger to take a graceful exit on. I resisted the urge to indulge in a painkiller, knowing that my meeting with Haruno was likely the easiest part of what I'd be facing today.

Diligently I pulled out my notebook and started to record my observations to be included in both Haruno and Sasuke's files. Her behavior was amazingly rational for a kunoichi of her caliber – she was protective of her teammate and resented my intrusive questions. Additionally, she was clever enough to play the game right before making a grand exit. If I didn't know better, I would claim she was just as sane as a Konoha civilian – which worried me. I'd never met a ninja that didn't have a couple of screws loose. After I finished my investigation into 'Saki,' I would have to consider some evaluation of the Godaime's apprentice.

It said something really sad about the state of the Konoha that I was more freaked out by an apparently rational kunoichi than a high-powered shinobi's sudden devotion to drag.

Haruno had blown out of my office less than fifteen minutes into the session, which left a long time to wait for Naruto's session to start. I spent the time brewing a fresh pot of coffee and working on the jigsaw puzzle I kept on the table next to my desk. Puzzle-solving was my hobby; I had become so skilled that I would turn all five-thousand pieces upside-down so they only showed the brown of the cardboard. Matching the pieces together by shape, without the hint of the picture, was challenging.

I'd made four matches when I heard the knock on the door announcing my next appointment had arrived. "Come in," I called as I turned in my seat, knowing that Naruto didn't possess a lot of patience. The door slammed open as soon as the words left my lips, and Uzumaki Naruto bounced in, a cheerful bundle of orange clothing, blond hair, and ADHD.

"Heya, Ichiraku-baasan!" He gave me a wide grin and plopped down – in a seat in the middle of the room. A seat which I'd never seen a shinobi take, since it was vulnerable from all sides. Apparently Uzumaki Naruto had huge amounts of confidence in his own prowess... or else he was too stupid to have developed a sense of self-preservation. I suspected it might be a combination of both.

"Hello, Naruto-kun," I said. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Nahhh," he said, dismissing the offer. "I don't suppose you have any ramen?"

Okay, that made me blink. "Why would I have ramen? This isn't a restaurant."

"Aren't you married to Ichiraku-jiisan?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I always have ramen on me." Truth to tell, I wasn't that fond of the noodles. Once upon a time, I'd like the dish quite a bit, but more than two decades of ramen, ramen and more ramen had made the food lose its luster. I wasn't stupid enough to try to explain that to my husband's best customer, though. I had the feeling that if you cut Naruto, he'd bleed ramen broth.

"If I was married to Ichiraku-jiisan, I'd make sure I'd always have ramen!"

My jaw dropped slightly as I tried to formulate a response. Naruto was talking about marrying my husband... this conversation was wrong on so many levels, but it did confirm one thing: Naruto was likely bisexual. Naruto had had a very strange childhood and didn't consider social taboos the way most people would.

"He does make good ramen, but I don't eat it while I'm at work," I said after I managed to gather my wits. I knew this was going to be a weird conversation, I reminded myself. I carefully crafted my next sentence to play upon Naruto's hero complex. "And right now, I need your help to do my work."

He puffed up predictably, and I couldn't help but smile. "What can I do for you?"

"Do you know what I do for a living?"

"You talk to people, right?"

"That's part of my job. I'm actually Konoha's final shinobi evaluator. What I do is certify if a shinobi is field-ready. Do you remember when we talked after your graduation?"

His face squinted up cutely as he tried to jog his memory. "Not really. I was more worried about getting a really cool photo!"

Trying to get into Naruto's head might be the end of my own sanity. "I talk to all the shinobi, Naruto-kun," I said patiently, the way I'd speak to a five-year-old instead of a boy approaching seventeen.

Though calling him a boy was inaccurate now, I corrected myself. I hadn't seen him in a while, and my mental image of him was stuck at about twelve, right before he became Jiraiya-sama's apprentice; he'd grown since then. He was taller than I was and had packed on some muscle. His face had refined, and he was rather handsome, as his father Yondaime-sama had been. Naruto was quite yummy, really.

And dumb as a box of rocks.

"So why did you want to see me today?"

I was going to have to handle this carefully. Coming out and telling him, the way I had with Haruno, would not work. And Naruto was renowned for being sensitive when it came to the Uchiha; Kakashi had complained a couple times about how difficult they had been to babysit during their genin years. Their rivalry was becoming legendary in Konoha, which was part of the reason the news about Uchiha becoming Naruto's girlfriend was so disconcerting.

"I wanted to ask you some questions about Saki," I said carefully.

His face lit up with a happy smile. "She's my girlfriend."

"So I've heard. I'm curious, though, about her relationship with Uchiha Sasuke."

For a second, he was curiously still, which was notable in someone like Naruto, who was in constant motion. For a shinobi, he really sucked at hiding his thoughts, much like his teammate, Sakura. Copy-nin Kakashi had clearly skipped a couple of lessons with his team.

"The bastard doesn't like her," he said finally. "I think she's scared of him."

"Naruto..." I trailed off, knowing that I might be the bearer of some very bad news. "Sasuke and Saki... aren't they the same person?"

"No." His answer was uncharacteristically simple, since he tended to babble.

"Sasuke is dressing up as Saki-chan, Naruto-kun," I said gently.

"That's not how it works," Naruto corrected me. "Sasuke is Sasuke, and Saki-chan is Saki-chan."

"Is that what Sasuke told you?"

He looked out the window, avoiding my eyes. "It's just how it works. Sasuke doesn't like to talk about Saki-chan, and Saki-chan is too shy to talk about someone else."

That might make sense, now that I thought on it. Saki-chan was nothing like the grim, very masculine Uchiha Sasuke. It might be part of a type of extensive role play.

"Can you give Saki-chan a message that gets to Sasuke? Like to meet you someplace, or about a mission you might have coming up?"

"Sure," Naruto said, "but why would I want to? When I'm with Saki-chan, I'm with her, not the bastard. I see him every day."

Originally I'd wondered if Sasuke had made changes to his personality and gender identification to secure a place as Naruto's partner. Now I wondered if Naruto had been dragged into Sasuke's insanity.

"How long have you two been dating?"

He looked down at his hands. "Ever since we met?"

"Which was when?"

"We were twelve," he said, "and on a mission."

Usually the word "mission" was a cue for the questioner to change the topic, since a shinobi village had lots of secrets involved. I possessed the highest-level security clearance in Konoha, equal to Tsunade-sama's herself (a necessity since I was a counselor for her). So Naruto's gambit wasn't going to stop me.

"I have Kage-level clearance," I told him. "Can you tell me about the mission?"

He blushed a bit. "Saki-chan was helping out with a surveillance mission, and we had to hide together."

I would need to obtain a copy of that mission report before making my determination about Uchiha. Secret identities were commonplace among shinobi, and there might be a jutsu involved in the creation of Saki-chan.

My next question was one I didn't want to ask at all. I'd been exposed to some pretty harrowing conversations (Ibiki had once gone through a step-by-step recount of an interrogation he'd participated in, which had put me off eating for three days), so I was pretty resilient.

"How far have you two gone?" I asked, squirming a little inside at the mental image of Naruto and Saki-chan engaged in intimate relations. This was worse than when I'd given the sex talk to Ayame.

Now it was his turn to squirm, which was answer enough. "Are you a pervert, too?"

Considering he'd been mentored by two of Konoha's most renown perverts, his words were probably meant as a back-handed insult. But I had developed very thick skin by years of exposure to the worst shinobi could dish out. "I'm doing my job. Knowing about interpersonal-relationship influences upon shinobi helps me with their evaluation."

"Huh?"

Oops. I'd used four-syllable words. No wonder I'd lost him.

"It's my business to know how teammates get along."

"Oh! But Saki-chan's not on my team," he said.

I wanted to run my head into a wall. This was the prime candidate to become Rokudaime?

"But Sasuke is."

"Sasuke and I get along just fine. We acknowledge each other," Naruto said.

And to someone like Naruto, who'd spent his childhood abhorred and ignored by the people around him, that was all that mattered. Somewhere along the way, he'd fixated on the Uchiha as his most important person and hadn't faltered since. Their being in a relationship might actually be healthy, provided I could determine how Sasuke's transgender ways were playing into things.

"And how is your relationship with Saki? Is it different than what you have with Sasuke?"

He stared at me like I was an idiot. "Of course. I don't sleep with Sasuke."

We had again stumbled into the "too much information" realm. Though the idea of the two very pretty boys making out is kind of hot, I caught myself thinking. Mentally, I gave myself a clout. I'd obviously been spending too much time counseling the many, many shinobi perverts and my thinking had been influenced.

"If you had to choose between them, who would..."

Naruto cut me off before I could finish my question. He rose to his feet, slamming his hand down on the desk beside me as he leaned in close enough for me to see the anger in his blue, blue eyes.

I'd been threatened by the best – once Kakashi had offered a demonstrate some of the Sharingan's more interesting features after I'd pried a bit too hard into his life – and it took a lot to shake me. It was all I could do not to shake as Naruto glared down at me.

"I am going to become Hokage, Ichiraku-baasan. There's no way I'm sacrificing any of my precious people." His voice was deeper, more authoritative, and suddenly, I realized this commanding presence was what had won the support of Tsunade. Naruto might be a flake, but when the cards were down, he wouldn't lose.

I tried to find a response, but my throat was too dry to speak. Naruto took advantage of my hesitation by walking out of the room, not even offering a goodbye. The door slammed shut so hard in his wake that I was surprised it didn't come off the hinges.

As soon as he left, the atmosphere lightened substantially, and I could breathe normally again. I'd been subjected to some pretty intense killer intent in the past, but Naruto was in a class of his own. It might be due to the Kyuubi's presence (and maybe the villagers had been correct to worry about what the jinchuriki could do), but I believed Naruto's determination was part of it. My questioning had made me register as a threat to those he cared for, and he was going to fight back with everything he had.

Naruto was clever like a fox, I couldn't help but think.

It took a couple more minutes for me to calm down enough to grab my evaluations. As I reached for a pen, I noticed something that made me roll my eyes in exasperation.

The vibrations Naruto had sent over my desk scattered the puzzle I'd been working on. The pieces, most no larger than the knuckle on my thumb, had fallen onto the floor and into the garbage can. Sighing, I fell to my knees to try to collect them, knowing that it was likely futile.

This wasn't the first time an encounter with a shinobi had interfered with my puzzle – some of them swiped pieces, indulging in their compulsive kleptomania; others would use the pieces as "demonstrations" to illustrate a point about their missions; and in one memorable case, Orochimaru had eaten a piece.

In fact, I'd never been able to complete a puzzle in my office. But if it made the shinobi I interviewed feel like they'd "struck back" at me, I would spend an entire lifetime working on puzzles that I would never seen completed. It was much better than any of the alternatives.