> “Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.”
> ― Robert A. Heinlein, "Have Spacesuit—will travel"
Yugao Uzuki, codenamed CAT, had been camped out on the roof of a building in the more shady part of town all night and deep into the morning.
Being a part of the ANBU meant she undertook a plethora of dangerous covert operations, but none had stirred up her emotions like this one.
It was a curious thing for her, she had never really experienced a feeling like it, a fundamentally instinctual drive to protect.
Her target was a young Uchiha girl who had entered the village last night in a dissociative state. The very same girl that had used her newly revealed Dojutsu to not only reveal some of Yugao's personality but also employed the very same Dojutsu to identify her face and unmask her.
Hound and Cat had noticed her entering the village late last night covered in blood and aimlessly wandering from alley to alley. Besides the very obvious red flag that the blood signified the girl was acting outside of her normal patterns. She was moving like a convert operative, clearly lacking experience in this activity, but attempting to be as quiet as possible and stay out of sight.
This was strange because not two weeks earlier the girl was acting like any other girl. She was reserved and showed signs of trying to hide parts of herself, but overall the girl was just a girl. The only strange behavior they had seen was when she overworked herself in training, but that wasn't unheard of for young Uchiha. They often received a lot of pressure to live up to the clan name so it didn't set off too many alarms within the Konoha intelligence network.
That was why when they saw a young Uchiha of such high birth covered in blood and exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress and a possible dissociative disorder while attempting to be sneaky and failing they immediately began to trail her.
The girl had wandered about for maybe 15 minutes before slinking out of an alley directly into the main thoroughfare where she was greeted by the Jinchuriki, Uzumaki Naruto.
Both Hound and Cat had tensed up immediately preparing for the worst which never came to pass. Instead, the owner of the shop an ex-shinobi named Ichiraku who served with the fourth Hokage seemed to recognize the girl's plight. He had immediately and tactfully diffused the uncontrolled breakdown via food of all things. The man had retired to put his passion into ramen of all things so maybe there was something to be found between the lines here.
From there the events proceeded basically according to what was expected of a little girl dealing with insurmountable pain. Noramori, the target in question, had leaned into the comfort. After consuming an alarming amount of what was essentially comfort food she had broken down in the arms of Konoha's JInchuriki.
Expecting nothing special, Hound had gone ahead and left Cat to monitor the tail end of the situation. Cat had expected the girl to cry out all of her tears and be done with whatever bothered her, but it seemed that her breakdown in the young Uzumaki's arms was simply a symptom of a larger issue. She had begun begging the blond-haired pariah over and over again to not let her go back. Presumably, she was referring to her clan, but as of this time, it was still uncertain what had happened to the girl.
Either way, this was where Cat began to lose her operational integrity and she immediately rushed toward the Hokage's office.
♦♦♦
Kneeling before the Hokage Cat struggled to restrain her emotions. There was just something about seeing a girl of such a young age breaking down in apparent fear while maintaining a dissociative state. Cat was certain the child was so overwhelmed that she probably wouldn't even remember the events of that night in any form of clarity.
"Lord Hokage, " Cat addressed Hiruzen, " I come bearing additional information... I must admit that my report may be compromised and influenced by some personal biases. Requesting permission to debrief, sir."
Hiruzen was already looking over a written report from Hound on the current state of the young Uchiha girl. He wondered what put such a fire in Cat's heart that she was speaking in such a clipped and angry manner. He assumed that the clear abuse that the young Uchiha was going through resonated with some deeper instinct in his operative, but he was curious to see things from Cat's perspective. The Hounds report alone had prompted him to allocate more resources to monitoring the conditions and plans of the Uchiha, after-all if they were planning a coup then they were getting desperate and desperation led good men to commit terrible acts. Hiruzen knew this all too well.
"Go on, " Hirzuen intoned while looking over the ANBU squad leader's report.
"Sir, I 22:00 hours Hound and I were routinely monitoring the village when I sensed a chakra signature that was in upheaval. It appeared that a massive chakra signature was teetering on the edge of exploding. Just as soon as I picked up on this signature it began to mask its presence. Thinking this might be an unhinged missing-nin entering the territory I notified my squad leader and together we searched for the source to confirm the threat, " Cat's voice was stilted and contained barely restrained rage.
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"I admit that I was very surprised when we found the threat and determined it to be a girl of barely 8 years old looking like she went through a series of systematic torture sessions. She was masking her presence and attempting to proceed through the village unnoticed, while I cannot confirm this I believe that she was doing it unconsciously and out of a sense of survival. This would make sense if our previous reports on the girl's growth are anything to go off of. Our previous evaluations of the girl are that she was repressing a large number of negative emotions and seemed to think that she was good at hiding them from the outside world. Previous reports found that she is alarmingly calculative for a child, but that her personality is relatively unstable, and when she believes she is alone she systematically releases what appears to be more anger and trauma than any child should rightfully have during an era of peace. All attempts to find emotional or physical stressors in her environment have previously turned up nothing out of the ordinary, " Cat contained as her voice became duller and more analytical.
"This, well, this was not like that. I was extremely alarmed by the state of her chakra suppression alone. While it appears to be more refined and controlled, under the surface it felt like someone had compressed down a wave of explosive force. Her chakra felt like a caged animal backed into a corner, all claws, but with nothing to release it upon. I found myself concerned that she would attack the first person she saw. So you can imagine my surprise when the first person she saw was none other than the Jinchuriki, Uzumaki Naruto. I was prepared to take action since a threat to an imperfect Jinchuriki such as the Uzumaki heir could have led to grave consequences for the inhabitants of the village, " A little more heat entered Cat's voice and she attempted to suppress it and keep it more professional.
"I... ahem.... excuse me. I was not prepared for the Uchiha heiress to break down like a baby in the Uzumaki heir's arms. I was even less prepared to see her display direct signs of terror and abuse regarding her family. It would seem that the Uzumaki boy has offered to shelter the young kunoichi in his own home. I would like for you to assign me to watch over them. I want to closely monitor the situation and see if I can extract more data on what sort of events led to putting the Uchiha girl into this state, " Cat was desperately attempting to keep her voice calm and level.
'Huh she left out the information on Ichiraku, she must be pissed. Well, it's not like I don't agree with her reaction. I suppose she won't be useful while she worries about this developing situation.'
Hiruzen drummed his fingers on his desk while gazing at his operative as she quivered in barely contained rage.
"I would ask you to speak freely, Yugao, " Hiruzen addressed Cat by name.
"I do not think that is wise, sir, " Cat replied after jumping a little at the name.
"Wise or not, it is what I request. Believe me, I have seen and heard much worse, some of which you have reported to me before, " Hiruzen replied.
Hiruzen was prepared for Cat to begin screaming and yelling. He was not prepared for his operative to look up at him with glistening eyes and gritted teeth.
"Whatever bastard did this to her, a child, I will bring them to justice, " Cat snarled.
Hiruzen showed no reaction beyond the lowering of his eyebrows.
"Very well, " Hirzeun replied.
He knew that if he pushed much harder Cat would lose any type of productive or cathartic expression from this interaction. He recognized that look, it was the look of a mother who couldn't do anything for her child that was in pain. A look for helplessness and barely contained fury.
"Permission granted, I will have other ANBU fill in your protection details and patrol duties. You are to watch and collect data under your civilian identity. Under no circumstances is the general public to become aware of your identity as an ANBU operative. If you are exposed you will have to be stripped of your position and reenter the public command structure of Shinobi, " Hiruzen spoke with a firm tone that was crafted from years of delivering orders.
"Yes, Sir!" Cat, or rather, Yugao, accepted the terms of this mission without even a second thought.
'You are dismissed, " Hiruzen commanded.
Before HIruzen had even finished his sentence Yugao was no longer present. Looking down at Hound's report he shook his head.
'Fugaku how has it come to this?'
♦♦♦
Imeadietly after receiving her orders Yugao rushed to the Uzumaki residence and began to monitor the situation. She was glad that the boy hadn't tried anything with the girl. If he had there would be a limbless Jinchuriki in Konoha and regardless of how rash of a decision that was Yugao couldn't find it in her to have any sympathy for someone who would take advantage of such a damaged little girl.
Yugao didn't sleep a wink. She barely even blinked as she monitored the young boy's home.
'This is where he lives? This place is a dump. Damn, the civilian council for deciding this was how we should treat one of our greatest assets. The whole lot of them are garbage and don't understand a bit of the world of shinobi.'
Yugao got a good laugh out of the stake-out though.
At roughly 0800 hours two civilians dressed up in obvious criminal outfits approached Naruto's door and began to paint it with a highly inflammatory statement. Just before Yugao had decided to intervene Noramori had swung the door open and proceeded to scare the piss out of the two of them. That girl would probably do very well in the T&I department even if the majority of her effectiveness in this situation was due to who her father was. It also helped a good deal that she was acting like an unhinged serial killer. At least Yugao hoped it was just acting.
When Noramori had proceeded back inside Yugao had heard and felt a veritable storm of emotions coming from inside the house. It sounded like Noramori was going through a wide range of mood swings and it served to put her attitude toward the civilians into perspective.
Noramori appeared to be clinging to Naruto's presence like a lifeline. Her act with the civilians, while mostly an act, seemed to be more indicative of an inability to settle her emergent personality. If Yugao didn't know any better she would say that the girl was suffering from some form of split personality disorder.
This thought angered her even further. It took an enormous amount of trauma to lead anyone down that path and this knowledge only served to cement her decision to make sure that whoever made this girl develop in this way was brought to justice for their crimes. Quick, harsh, and bloody justice.
About an hour later the two children left the house in the direction of the academy. Noramori was still wearing some of Naruto's less fluorescent clothing since hers had been heavily damaged and most likely still soaked in a copious amount of viscera.
She caught them bickering, something about Naruto needing to eat more than instant ramen to grow. Noramori was laying into him, but the argument ended in her slapping him on the arm repeatedly when he simply told her "At least I'm not short" with a shit-eating grin on his face. This was in response to Noramori expressing quite vocal concern over his health and body development; a weird topic for an eight-year-old to focus on, but Yugao was beginning to get used to the strange actions of the little girl.
'She's got a lot of fire in her, even if she is repressing everything until she snaps, I think I might be becoming attached.' Yugao thought to herself.
After arriving at the school the two were stopped by another young boy running up to them with a look of concern and disgust on his face. It was kinda impressive how he managed to look concerned for Noramori and disgusted with Naruto at the same time. The boy was Sasuke, Noramori's twin brother and he appeared to be equally chewing out Naruto and fawning over his sister to make sure she was alright. He looked like he might have been panicking before his sister's whereabouts could be confirmed after being out all night.
'Well her brother looks like he's a good enough kid. I wonder what Noramori will tell him, ' Yugao's forehead creased as she imagined Sasuke's reaction to his sister's story.