Hello and welcome back friends, I'm so glad that we've made it through another year together. Some of you might recognize this as a reboot of Dreaming of Konoha. I felt that too much time had passed from when I initially wrote it to pick up from where I had left it. I thank you for coming back, and hope that you enjoy the Returning Dreams.
Naruto smiled as he held up his favorite teacher and mentor, holding him as they made their way to the hospital to get him patched up after the battle with Mizuki. He'd beaten him into submission with his little army of clones, and Iruka had made him an official Shinobi of the Hidden Leaf Village. It was the first step on his path to become the Hokage, and he would surpass even the Fourth.
Closing his eyes, he let out a groan as the sunlight began to get rather annoying. Wait, sunlight? Hadn't it just been evening? Opening his eyes slowly, he let out a groan as he realized that he'd been having one of those dreams again. The muted grey of his dorm room was somewhat comforting, but he couldn't help but feel it was a bit of a letdown. He was back in the boring, regular humdrum world. It was like the dreams were haunting him with a fantastic world just out of his reach when he was stuck in this one.
Certainly he had a better life growing up at the Konoha Academy after the car crash which left scars on his cheeks than his dreamself had. He might not have been a popular student, but he wasn't completely isolated and surrounded by those that hated him. Letting out a disgruntled groan, he reached over onto his bedside table and picked up the pen there to scribble down notes about the dream. If nothing else, he might take some extra art courses and make it into some sort of comic book. The story would likely be popular, wouldn't it?
He couldn't help but laugh as he dragged himself out of bed, realizing that once again getting eight full hours of sleep was a dream even more ludicrous than the ones about being some sort of super powered magical boy with super powered springs in his heels bounding around like a rubber super ball on speed or something. The dreams had been a constant companion for as long as he could remember, granting him a second life that for all intents and purposes… sucked balls.
Setting the pen back on the dream journal, he mused about the story told within its pages and those of all the twins he had stored in his closet. It spoke of a child that longed for attention and affection, but was denied that at most turns. So it seemed almost logical that when Mizuki after a seemingly miraculous change of heart, the dream Naruto had leaped at the offer for a chance at his dream. But there was something about how dense he was in his dreams that just made him cringe. How could he have thought it was possible that Mizuki gave a shit about him? Let alone enough to try and get some sort of extra-credit exam.
Aside from the fact that he was stealing a top-secret scroll, which was called Forbidden in the title, and supposed to learn a jutsu off it, the dream Naruto had some amazing stealth. Even wearing a day-glow orange jumpsuit, he was able to escape and avoid several of the highest ranking ninja on the force, paint the monument in broad daylight, and even infiltrated the Hokage Tower to get the scroll in the first place.
His stealth was insane to be able to pull that off in that orange monstrosity. To be fair, it had been all he could afford that would last long enough to be worth the money, but it was an eye sore.
Closing his eyes as he fought off a shudder from the nightmare that was his dreamself's fashion sense, he made a mental note to avoid Mr. Mizuki for the couple days until his transfer to the state college's offseason wrestling coach was finalized. He was waiting on a few mail-order supplies for a prank on the teacher's housing district, but Mizuki should be moved in at his new place by then. Otherwise, it was just staying away from the Elementary gym classes when they are having sessions. As a freshman, he didn't go over that way at all, so that was no sweat either.
Rolling his back, he groaned as he wondered what to do with the rest of his early Saturday morning, as a glance at his clock revealed it wasn't even a quarter to six in the morning. Closing his eyes, he sighed as the sound of a gentle patter of rain falling against his windows filled the silence around him. No chance of going out to get some running in, perhaps he could swing over and check on his plants in the greenhouse. Maybe even get some solo training in on Gai's self-defense lessons. Or maybe he could show some team spirit and watch one of the sports teams practicing.
Yeah right, that Tenten girl he'd hung out with during Kakashi's detention would probably have a heart attack if he showed any interest in sports.
Letting out a yawn, he staggered over towards the bathroom, powering up his laptop on his way past. He'd kill a little bit of time before heading to the Greenhouse, since breakfast wouldn't be served for another while, and the good stuff about an hour after they get the juice bar and coffee running. A quick clean-up later, he opened his browser to see if there was anything going on tonight. Sometimes the drama club had a play or something on Saturdays, or there would be a tournament of one form or the other in the student lounge. But today, like so many others, Saturdays generally were fairly empty of events. A point lamented and celebrated by students and teachers alike. He could almost swear that at one time he'd done it in the same sentence.
Other than the lack of activities listed on the main school calendar, the only thing of note on the school's homepage was a story about last night's game. Before he could even read the headline, he had to smirk as he saw Tenten letting out a celebratory whoop while hugging someone in the manager's jersey. The shorter girl was curious, in that her eyes almost looked white in the picture, but he knew from seeing her in class that they were actually a very light shade of purple with small irises. She was a nice girl, but unlike Tenten she was very shy and reserved.
A quick scan of the article told him that Tenten had all but won the game on her own, and it almost made him wish he'd been able to see it. The detention he'd served last night with Iruka scrubbing toilets was worth being able to string up that bully by his tighty-whiteys for picking on those little kids. That he'd been able to get the jerkwad up the entire flagpole without his underwear ripping or a teacher stopping him had to be one of his crowning moments of vengeance; getting caught by Iruka walking around the corner just as he was about to flee, not so much.
When they swung by later on to thank him, and sneak him some pieces of candy had made it a pretty decent night. Iruka had looked away, but Naruto had caught the little smirk of pride and mischievous twinkle to his eye that stood out nicely against his scar. He hoped that the kid with the excessively long scarf and his friends, drippy nose and carrot top princess were having a good lie in this morning.
Maybe he should have asked their names last night.
Too late to do anything about that now, so instead he turned back to the computer screen and checked out what was trending in the student forums. Talking about the game, complaining about the amount of homework, wondering when the next trip into town was for those on the scholarship, and other topics were the usual fare here, and he probably should have looked into that one about the scholarship students going to town so he could avoid Kurenai and her shopping trip of death, but that was put on the backburner as he caught sight of a new topic.
To be honest, it was the creator of the sub-forum that had caught his attention. After all, it wasn't every day that Shikamaru Nara, the personification of laziness, posted on the school's boards, let alone make a section off to itself. It was after that sunk in and he saw the title that made him curious.
It was supposedly a group study focused on dreams, which made sense for the boy that slept through most classes, but the name he gave it was a bit strange.
Konoha's
Student
Health
Investigation
of
Nocturnal
Observations
Based
Imaginings
One might have played it off as him wanting to make a play off of the school's team the Shinobis, but Naruto actually knew his sense of humor and this was not it. While Naruto might not have been the brightest student in his classes, a solid C average was very respectable thank you very much; even he could tell this was Shikamari's way of slipping in a subtle hint. Sure it was as subtle as if it had been constructed in fifty-foot tall letters doused in kerosene, set ablaze while fireworks went off in the sky as nude dancers did cartwheels in around it to a full symphonic orchestra playing the national anthem of ten different nations at once, but he wouldn't have been surprised if his dreamself would have missed it.
Then again, he has been perceptive a few times in those dreams.
Instead of debating the various degrees of density that would have been his counterpart's cranial protective shell, he clicked the link into the threads to see what it was about. On the surface, it looked to be a lot of guff about dreams, their meanings, and how to control them. Very true to Shikamaru's character, only the barest of effort had been made, with a boilerplate forum, plain graphics, and other contrent that could have been found in minutes of searching online. Already there was three members to the forum.
The first of course was Shikamaru, the second wasn't too much of a stretch of the imagination. If one were to talk about Shika for any length of time, his best friend Chouji would come up very swiftly. The guy was a pleasant fellow, unless you called him fat. He was sensitive about the condition that he suffered from, and would lash out people that teased him about it. Naruto had gotten some satisfaction drawing off Chouji's bullies with vengeance pranks. The truth of the matter though, was if Chouji were to really get pushed into a corner, the person would find out that under that glandular condition, Chouji was a solid wall of muscle.
While Naruto's pranks might have bruised their pride, they stung far less than anything Chouji might have done. Yet there was some good of the situation for the two of them. They had become borderline friends, and Naruto learned that the only larger than an Akimichi's appetite, was their generosity.
The final member however was the one that made him curious. Shino Aburame was well-known throughout the school as a silent and aloof student seemingly destined for his first love of entomology. His ever present shades and hooded sweatshirt had once given him a status as a rebellious youth among the students, but Naruto had learned the secret about them. While hiding from some teachers, he'd heard that his family had a history of sensitivity to light, in particular direct sunlight.
There was no proof that Naruto had anything to do with shades being closed in rooms that Shino happened to be heading into. Or two dipshits that thought it'd be funny to steal his shades and then laugh as he clutched his eyes in pain finding themselves waking up the next week to dorm rooms filled waist deep with earthworms. The staff couldn't prove that Naruto was the one that did it, but he had noticed a few of them had let him slide on a few things for the next couple weeks.
For the three of them to be joined in on a project as the founding three members was certainly something to pay attention to. Each of them had been a part of his dreams, classmates that he would hang around with between pranks or being screwed over by the entire village. Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and let the connections form in his mind, even if that was the only place they were. He'd noticed that aside from creating the forum, they hadn't posted anything in it. Opening his eyes again, he noticed one of the top threads was asking for dreams to discuss in them.
He thought about his dreams, and wondered if someone else's perspective on them wouldn't hurt. After all, he was getting nowhere fast with them, and the idea of talking to the school psychiatrist about them was… yeah the less time he spent in Dr. Kurenai Yuhi's care, the better. If it wasn't the shopping, it was slicing apart his mental state in ways that made him somewhat uncomfortable. He'll stick to the once a year mandatory visits thank you.
While he was thinking, he signed up for the board. It was just a couple clicks and he was subscribed to all the threads and able to post in any that weren't locked. With a shrug he pulled over his dream journal and took a long look at the final entry. Would it be alright to post this? Maybe make sure that it expresses he didn't think of the actual people like this? Yeah, that could work.
The typing up of the dream was a quick ten minute affair, which left him plenty of time for other things. Posting it on the forum, he decided he needed to be up and moving. His little glass enclosed garden was calling to him, and so he closed the laptop and made his way to the greenhouse.
The little glass sanctuary had been little more than just an empty area when he first started the gardening club, the glass walls and roof covered in a layer of dirt and grim from disuse of being abandoned. But he had set about cleaning and organizing everything to serve as a proper gardening area. Just as his first crop had been harvested, he had been asked to see the Board of Governors who wanted to close it down since it was supposedly a drain on the school's budget.
With Principal Sarutobi by his side, he had managed to show that as he was donating the produce to the school, and only asking for dirt and seed, how he had used rain gutters from around the school to fill a cistern to water the crops even during droughts, and various other things he had worked out with only the old man's help, that not only was it not draining money, but in the long run it would end up saving them hundreds. Then Sarutobi mentioned something about student moral being unable to be measured for just having fresh produce, but at the time he didn't understand that.
It was a week afterwards that he found someone standing just outside his greenhouse with a slip of paper asking to join. The blonde girl had turned out to be Ino Yamanaka, and despite having the same schedule as him seldom actually seemed to be in the greenhouse when he was. In the five or six years since the Gardening Club started, he had only seen her during the planning of crop rotations, club pictures, and doodles left on their message white board.
She favored the flowers, which went to decorating the school. Some were transplanted, while others pruned and placed into vases, both of which Ino took care of along with growing the new ones to replace them. All of which helped ensure that the Gardening Club, despite having half the minimum number of members was still a fully funded club. Maybe if they got some more members, they could expand the greenhouse.
But that would have to wait, as he noticed his ad for recruitment was torn down yet again, in its place was a sign-up for one of the winter sports teams. He shook his head at that, knowing it was pointless to fight it, he just made a note to put a new one up later and moved on. The greenhouse, his sanctuary awaited, and as he fished out the key for the door he considered how nice it was going to be surrounded by his plants as the rain pattered against the glass panels.
It was a great start to a lazy Saturday for him.
