Where Did All These Rabbits Come From?

At night, Sasuke sat cross-legged in the middle of the training ground once again.

He closed his eyes and formed the hand sign for Rabbit.

A fist-sized bulge rose from the center of his shadow. Then, with a pop, it split open.

A rabbit tumbled out.

It rolled twice across the ground and lay motionless on its back for a while.

"...Is it alive?" Sasuke reached out and poked its soft belly.

At last, the rabbit slowly rolled over and crawled to Sasuke's knee.

"Ow, I hit my head." Its voice was soft and slow.

White Dog came over. "Just one?"

Black Dog circled around to the front. "You look a little different too. What can you do?"

The rabbit opened its mouth, then paused. "...Oh, right. What was it again?"

White Dog turned to Sasuke. "Did you summon the wrong thing? This one's got something wrong with its head."

The rabbit finally remembered. "Clones. I can make clones."

A second rabbit appeared out of nowhere beside it.

Then a third, a fourth, and a fifth.

In less than three seconds, dozens of white rabbits filled the training ground.

"Ah." All the rabbits spoke at once.

"I think I made too many," they said.

Sasuke stared at the sea of white rabbits before him.

"Escaping Rabbit, can you take them back?"

"Yes," all the rabbits answered in unison.

Black mist spread again, and the rabbits shrank back into one. It slowly hopped over to Sasuke's feet.

White Dog stared at Escaping Rabbit. "Making clones is pretty impressive, but now that the rest of us have new abilities, you should have one too, right?"

Escaping Rabbit blinked. "I guess so."

"What do you mean, 'I guess so'?" White Dog's ears flattened.

"I can't remember. I don't think I can do it yet. I'll have to get stronger first."

"So each shikigami's strength is tied to mine, but their extra abilities have to be unlocked separately." Sasuke looked at Escaping Rabbit.

"Let's say Black and White are Grade 2, but you're different from them. You were only just summoned, so you're still Grade 1."

Escaping Rabbit looked up at Sasuke. After a moment, it answered, "Mm."

"Leveling up shouldn't be too hard. You have your own minds, so you can go out on your own." Sasuke stood and walked over to the low wall at the edge of the training ground.

White Dog finally understood. "So if it makes a whole bunch of clones and sends them all over the village, that's like having a bunch of rabbits grinding experience at the same time?"

Black Dog added, "And gathering intel."

"People in Konoha won't be on their guard when they see a rabbit." Sasuke turned to Escaping Rabbit. "Everyone likes little rabbits, after all."

Escaping Rabbit tilted its head. "Likes?"

"Enough." Sasuke brushed the dust from his hands. "Go have fun. If anyone asks, act like an ordinary rabbit. If you find out anything interesting, report back to me."

Escaping Rabbit stayed crouched where it was. After about five seconds, it slowly nodded. "Okay."

It landed lightly and started toward the edge of the training ground.

After three steps, it stopped and looked back at Sasuke.

"Sasuke, I'm going now."

"Go ahead."

Escaping Rabbit took five more steps, then stopped again.

"I'm really going now."

"...Go on."

Escaping Rabbit took ten steps.

"If I find out anything, I'll come back and tell you."

"If you keep talking, it'll be morning before you leave."

White Dog watched it disappear, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"Megumi... No, Sasuke."

"Yeah?"

"Why do I feel like we just let a ticking time bomb loose?"

"It's just a rabbit."

The next morning.

When the owner of Ichiraku Ramen on Konoha's shopping street rolled up the storefront shutter, he found a white rabbit sitting on the steps outside.

In an alley, Mrs. Nakano was heading to the river early to do laundry when she saw a rabbit perched on top of her mailbox, scratching its ear with a hind leg.

An old man responsible for cleaning the Ninja Academy carried a bucket into an empty classroom and found a rabbit sprawled across a desk in the front row by the window.

At the same time, two rabbits sat side by side in the hallway of the Anbu Interrogation Department, leaving several passing Anbu utterly baffled.

Inoichi Yamanaka saw a rabbit outside the Dango Shop.

People were seeing rabbits everywhere.

They were everywhere, but it was still strange to say there were a lot of them.

If you paid attention, there really did always seem to be a rabbit nearby. But even if the Anbu went out of their way to count them, they wouldn't find more than a hundred in the whole village.

The Anbu kept an eye out for rabbits while patrolling from the treetops.

When Iruka pushed open the classroom door, he froze at the sight.

There was another rabbit crouching in the back corner.

"What are you doing here?" White Dog lay beside the teacher's desk, staring straight at it.

"Playing," the rabbit in the back corner answered drowsily.

Naruto charged into the classroom and nearly stepped on the rabbit following close behind him.

He pointed at the rabbit beside White Dog and shouted, "Why is there another one?! Sasuke! What's going on?"

Sasuke rested his chin on one hand and glanced at the rabbits inside and outside the classroom. "It has nothing to do with me."

Shikamaru leaned back in his chair, his eyelids twitching twice. "These rabbits weren't here yesterday, and now they're suddenly everywhere... It can't be a jutsu. Who'd use such a pointless jutsu?"

Sakura pushed open the classroom door with a white rabbit in her hands and walked over to Sasuke.

"Maybe someone pointless would."

"Sasuke-kun, I found this rabbit on the way here... It seems to be hurt. It doesn't move much."

Sasuke took a look. This Escaping Rabbit clone had scraped its hind leg.

"Leave it there. It might be some kind of lab animal someone brought in. I'll deal with it later."

In the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi took his pipe from his mouth and tapped the ashes against the edge of the ashtray.

Kakashi Hatake crouched on the office windowsill, Make-Out Paradise open in his hands. His left leg dangled in the air, while his right knee was bent, foot resting against the window frame.

He turned a page, then held the book above his head to make the rabbit perched there shift over.

It had followed him from outside his apartment that morning. A rabbit.

"You can come in through the front door to give your report, Kakashi."

"Ah, you're right." Kakashi jumped down from the windowsill and dusted off his clothes.

"Third Hokage, there's a rabbit on my head."

"I see it."

"Shouldn't you say something?"

He shifted his office chair slightly to the side, revealing a rabbit sitting on the armrest to his right.

"I've been keeping it company for a while."

"What about my report?"

"Got it." Hiruzen took another puff of his pipe. "So what exactly is this?"

"Third Hokage, you're the Hokage. You can't just throw the question back at me." Kakashi leaned against the wall. "It's probably Sasuke."

"Ah." Hiruzen gave a brief reply, then took another puff of his pipe, lost in thought.

The sound of a cane came from the doorway.

Danzo pushed open the office door. Bandages covered half his face, and his one visible eye was even gloomier than usual.

A rabbit crouched on his right shoulder.

It sat quietly, its ears drooping over his bandages. It didn't look like it had any intention of getting down.

"Hiruzen." Danzo stood before the desk, his back ramrod straight.

"There are rabbits all over the village."

Hiruzen set his pipe on the ashtray and folded his hands on the desk.

"I know."

"You know?" Danzo's one eye swept over the rabbit on the desk, which was nibbling petals from a dried flower beside the ashtray, then turned back to Hiruzen.

"You should know better than I do where all this came from."

"Uchiha Sasuke."

"Third Hokage, these things shouldn't be roaming freely around the village. We need to gather them and put them to use. Hand him over to me, and I'll—"

The Escaping Rabbit on the desk suddenly sneezed, spraying bits of petal onto Danzo's outstretched fingers.

Danzo looked down at his fingertips, the muscles in his wrist tensing.

He clenched his right hand and grabbed the rabbit by the scruff, lifting it up.

Escaping Rabbit's hind legs swung twice in the air, then went still.

The rabbit in Danzo's hand turned into a clump of black sludge and quickly vanished.

The room was quiet for a moment.

Another rabbit crawled in beneath the doorframe of the Hokage's office.

This Escaping Rabbit hopped past Danzo's feet and onto the desk, then lowered its head and went back to eating the dried flower.

The corner of Hiruzen's mouth twitched.

He put his pipe back in his mouth and drew a deep breath, letting the smoke conceal his irrepressible smile.

"Danzo, have you forgotten what Itachi told us before he left?"

Danzo's brow furrowed beneath his bandages.

Kakashi sensed the subtle silence in the room and pushed away from the wall.

"Can I leave for now?" Before either man could answer, the smoke from his Body Flicker Technique had already dissipated by the window.

Only two old men and a rabbit eating a dried flower remained in the office.

Hiruzen took another puff of his pipe.

"Do you think Konoha can afford the consequences of losing him?"

Danzo tightened his fingers around the top of his cane, then loosened them again, barely stopping himself from cursing.

"I won't interfere with his life," he said in a low voice. "But don't you think it would be a waste to leave a resource like this unused?"

Hiruzen blew the ash from his pipe.

"I'll talk to him."

Escaping Rabbit tilted its head, and its left ear flopped onto Hiruzen's wrist.

Somewhere in Konoha, in a tree.

"...Your eyes are so red," the rabbit said first.

The crow didn't answer. It just stared at the rabbit in a daze.

"...What's your name?" The rabbit hopped a little closer, its paws landing on the branch, which swayed up and down.

The crow lowered its wings and moved back half an inch.

"...Can't you talk? Poor thing."

The two animals crouched facing each other, the distance between them visibly shrinking.

The crow opened its beak and let out a hoarse caw.

"...Did you come to see Sasuke?"

"Caw."

"...I see."

Atop a tall tower on the outskirts of Amegakure.

Rainwater streamed off the edges of the roof tiles in a continuous curtain, falling straight onto the sheet-metal awning below.

"Are you watching that boy again?"

Itachi's eyes suddenly opened.

Orochimaru leaned against the tower wall, his long tongue idly moving beyond his lips.

"That Sasuke-kun, right? Your..."

"No. I'm watching a rabbit."