Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, it wouldn't be FANfiction, now would it? Seriously, are these things actually required? _
Setting: Three months after the war has been won, the Ninja World is on the mend. Neji is dead, Sasuke left to hunt down the Orochimaru he revived, and Sai has rejoined Anbu and isn't around much. The remaining Leaf 10 have been meeting weekly at their favorite restaurants to stay in touch with and support each other. Before one such meeting, Naruto is meeting with Tsunade over delicate matters…
As the sun was beginning to set and the paperwork finally came to an end, Lady Tsunade decided it was time to break out the night's sake bottle. However, as soon as she opened the drawer for it a knock came on her door. It opened, and an Anbu guard stepped in. "Naruto Uzumaki is requesting an audience, Lady Fifth."
"Send him in." Tsunade was utterly baffled that Naruto was following protocol, and began to brace herself for grave news.
"Granny… I need a long term recon mission to the Land of Whirlpools, followed by an even longer term alliance building mission," stated an uncharacteristically solemn Naruto.
"Oh? Why would that be?" Tsunade fixed her favorite subordinate with a calculating glare.
"Kurama and I were talking, and… we're afraid of what could happen in the next couple of years. I need to go to the old Uzumaki manor and learn any of their clan sealing techniques When we destroyed the Ten Tails and its Gedo Statue, Kurama felt uneasy about it. He feels like instead of the normal ten or more years it will take for the seven trapped Tailed Beasts to reform, they're going to start reforming in little more than a year. With Kurama's and my chakra and the Uzumaki sealing abilities, I would like to recapture the Tailed Beasts before they can harm anyone and help choose partners for them."
Momentarily stunned, Tsunade began processing the information. She had been far too busy helping maintaining the peace that the end of the war and the continued Shinobi Alliance had brought to consider the fates of the seven loose Tailed Beasts, and had not yet imagined the devastation that the seven rematerializing at roughly the same time could possibly cause. However… while Naruto was indeed the best possible candidate for both recovering any information left in the ruins of the Uzumaki compound and resealing the Tailed Beasts, she was hesitant to let her best ninja go for what could be more than a year.
"Naruto, while I understand why this could be so important to you, I can't afford to let you go for that long. The Leaf needs you here, not searching buildings razed decades ago or off who knows where making new Jinchuriki."
The young blonde's eyes blazed a bit at the last word, but he quickly reigned in his anger. "Not Jinchuriki. Partners. The Tailed Beasts aren't the monsters of hate that need to be hidden away and feared, Kurama and Gyuki have proven that. All they need is someone willing to befriend them and-" Suddenly, Naruto had a mental image of a VERY irritated fox.
"Brat, one more mushy word from your mouth and I won't help you in this mad quest of yours." Kurama rumbled from Naruto's psyche.
"Heh… Sorry, buddy, but you know it's true. If it weren't for me trying so hard to help you, you'd still be just an angry fuzzball of red chakra. Now, you're even more of a hero than me!"
Naruto beamed at his foxy friend, and pulled himself back to the present, giving a light cough to cover for his pause. "Well, regardless, you know the only other person even halfway qualified for the second mission in the whole world is Octopops. Do you REALLY want him picking out people to give the ability to level a country in seconds to? As for the first… I would like to learn more about my mother, if at all possible. I know she was young when the Uzumakis were attacked, but… just one keepsake would mean the world to me." He fixed Tsunade with a pleading look, hoping she would allow him to go.
With a defeated sigh, Tsunade lamented, "Even if I wanted to, I know I wouldn't be able to stop you from leaving to do recon in the Land of Whirlpools. As a Sage, you have free reign to leave the village for any reason you wish so long as it does not hurt the village. However… I cannot approve your request for finding the Tailed Beasts 'partners'." Naruto neared another outburst when she raised her hand to silence him. "I do not tell you this because I don't think you should go, I say it because it's out of my hands. That is not a matter for the Leaf to decide…" Naruto's face fell a little, and Tsunade nearly let out a chuckle at how hard she could see he was focusing to come up with a way to let him go. "…but… I will be able to call a Five Kage Summit, where I can bring forth your plans. I will call for the summit to be exactly seven months from today, during which time I fully expect you to work out every facet of your plans, down to which country gets which Tailed Beast. In addition, I wish for you to keep both of your ideas to yourself, only telling those who you both trust fully AND require their help of. Understood?"
Naruto nearly leaped over her desk to give Tsunade a hug, thanking her profusely. "I won't let you down, Granny Tsunade! I'll get everything taken care of. Believe it!" Chuckling at his antics, Tsunade shooed him away.
"Leave whenever you're ready, Naruto. However, I don't want any of your friends storming in here a day or two from now demanding to know where you are. Please make sure they all know that you'll be gone for a while, but the examination of the old Uzumaki compound should not need to be shared. The fewer people that know you're headed there, the better. I would rather you not accidentally destroy anything precious because you were forced to fight."
"You got it, Granny!" Naruto bolted out of the office, headed straight for Ichiraku's as he realized he was late for this week's gathering.
Tsunade finally had the chance to open her sake and drank deeply from the bottle, ignoring her saucer that was next to it. "These next few months are going to be quiet without that brat around, that's for sure."
As Naruto arrived for this week's gathering of the Leaf Ten, he realized that he was by far the latest. Everyone had already ordered and were happily slurping away at their ramen, chatting lightly. As always, Hinata was the first to see Naruto jogging up to them.
"Hi, N-Naruto." She blushed lightly at her stammer, which deepened significantly at the bright smile he gave her.
"Hey guys, sorry I'm late. I was off getting a top-secret mission from the Granny!" he happily proclaimed. "Old man, start me off with five bowls of miso with extra extra pork, I think I'll go on the light side tonight."
Chuckling at Naruto's definition of eating light with his ramen, Teuchi busied himself with the requested foods.
"Naruto… the point of a secret mission is for it to remain secret. How is that going to happen if you're blurting you have it out to the world?" Shikamaru grumbled, then mumbled under his breathe about how troublesome Naruto was.
"Well, I figured I should tell you guys since it's possible I may not get back for seven months." Naruto commented offhandedly. Many of his friends gaped at him for that, and Lee proclaimed,
"Seven whole months? That is a most unbearable duration to go without our good friend Naruto!"
"Yeah, that's a rough post man. What is keeping you away for that long?" Kiba added.
Sakura quickly rebuked him with a "friendly" punch to the back of the head. "He already said it was top secret, dolt. Pay some attention!" Grumbling, Kiba pulled his face out of his ramen bowl and cleaned himself off.
Naruto chucked and asked, "So, anything interesting happen to you guys this week?"
As the night progressed, the members of the Leaf Ten remaining at Ichiraku's began to dwindle. Tenten and Lee left first, with him escorting her as he has since Neji's death. If Naruto didn't know better he would say there was something more than friendly between them, but the look in Tenten's eyes stated that she was not ready to let go of Neji. Soon after, Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji headed to their respective clan homes. Shino was then forced to take a somehow drunken Kiba (he swears Ayame spiked his ramen, but nobody believed him) home, leaving Naruto with Sakura and Hinata.
Finally, Sakura asked the question she nearly knocked Kiba out earlier for asking. "Naruto… what CAN you tell us about this mission of yours? When are you leaving? Who is going with you?"
"Sorry, Sakura, I really can't say anything beyond it's important to both me and the Five Great Nations. I'm leaving tomorrow, and it'll just be Kurama and I." Lightly snorting in laughter at the last bit, Sakura then excused herself as she had an early shift at the hospital the next day. Realizing that she had been left alone with Naruto, Hinata blushed and hurriedly attempted to excuse herself. However…
"Hinata, would you mind if I walked you home? There's something I've been wanting to ask you." Unable to give more than a squeaking yes, Hinata cursed her timid disposition. Naruto carried the conversation about trivial things most of the way to the Hyuuga compound, but when it got within sight he sat down on a bench and gestured for her to join him. Feeling a sense of dread wash over her, Hinata hesitantly obeyed.
With a slightly faraway expression, Naruto asked, "Hinata, can you make me a quick promise not to run away or faint or anything until you've heard me out?" Seeing the look of fear in her eyes as he said that, he hastily added, "It isn't anything bad, I promise. I just don't know if I can say what I want to right." When he gave a timid nod, he launched straight into what he needed to say.
"I have something I've wanted to talk to you about for months now, but I've never found the right words to say it without it sounding off. I'm sick of debating it, though, and I need to get it off my chest. First… what you told me during the fight with Pain… Do you still mean it?"
Fighting to keep her head up and keep the promise to hear him out, she tried her best to clearly, albeit quietly, state the truth. "Y-yes, Naruto, every word I said then holds true now…"
Smiling lightly, Naruto continued. "Hinata, I will be honest with you. That was the first time anyone had ever told me…" Naruto struggled to recite the three simple words that he has only been told three times, but the phrase felt like too much. "…those three words. At the time, they had me almost as confused as they did happy. To make things worse, Sakura told me almost the same as you did less than a month later, but I doubted her sincerity. Then, when Obito started the war I lost all of my ability and time to think of anything personal. When we finally ended the war, there was just too much going on and things still aren't back to normal yet. I still am getting over meeting my mother, fighting alongside my father, and coming to terms with all the lives that were lost. Now that everything is finally settling down, I have to leave for this crazy long mission and I won't see you for at least a few months, with… please don't tell anyone, but with a potentially longer and beyond S Rank mission following it." Hinata gasped, but didn't react further. She knew that Naruto, being the strongest ninja ever to live in her eyes, would be getting missions of that difficulty constantly simply because he was the only one who could handle them. Naruto then looked straight into her eyes… "I am not so selfish as to ask for you to wait for me, but… When I get back… if you're interested that is, I mean… would you… uh…"
Quietly giggling to herself at how the man who stood fearlessly in front of the most powerful enemies imaginable was stammering worse than herself on a bad day, Hinata shyly asked, "Naruto Uzumaki, are you asking me for a date?"
"Er… if you want to, that is, I… yeah, uh, I am." Naruto blushed deeply, wondering why he was having such a hard time with this. After all, he never had a hard time bugging Sakura for a date. There was just something… different, though, about asking Hinata out.
"I would love to go on a date with you, Naruto." Hinata murmured, and gave him a very brief hug. Of course, having not thought far enough ahead to after the hug she immediately blushed a striking tomato red and let go before he had a chance to react.
Scratching the back of his head, Naruto smiled and promised that he would do all he could to return before the seven month expiration of his mission, but wasn't sure if it was entirely possible. She just smiled and said it was okay, that she wouldn't mind waiting so long as it happened. After escorting her the rest of the way home, Naruto made it halfway to his apartment before shouting out in glee (waking up all in the vicinity) "I HAVE A DATE WITH HINATA!" in a surprisingly loud and gleeful tone.
Of course, at that time Hiashi Hyuga was quietly bidding his daughter goodnight outside of her apartment. Upon hearing the declaration, Hinata was back to her tomato red blushing state and squeaked out a "I guess N-Naruto is looking forward t-to it," in response to her father's questioning glare. The clan head just turned around before smiling and walked off, unintentionally amused at the situation.
Naruto's trip to the Land of Whirlpools was nigh on painfully slow for him. While he recognized the necessity of arriving quickly, he knew that using any of his techniques not available to regular ninja would send out telling chakra signatures to any sensory ninja and he could not afford to be followed. It took him the better part of a week before he was finally at the coast closest to his target island, and from there he chose to disguise himself as a feeble old man claiming he only wanted to visit what was left of the Hidden Eddy Village one final time before his passing. As such, he found it easy to secure a boat small enough to navigate while still easy enough to use for his elderly disguise to remain believable. As he set out, he steeled himself for what was yet to come.
Based on the information he had gathered, his clan's ancestral home was razed overnight and only few had escaped. Naruto prayed that in the time following the destruction, someone had come to bury the dead and mark the graves. He wasn't entirely sure he could handle the corpses if nobody had, for each body he could find was likely to be a cousin, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent…
"Kid," Kurama rumbled out from inside Naruto's mind. "Stop getting yourself worked up. We'll find what we find, and if you can't handle it on your own you have those stupid tadpoles of yours to help you out." Naruto gave the fox a mental nod, smirking slightly at the thought of Gamabunta's reaction of being called a tadpole, truly glad that he had taken the time to befriend Kurama during and after the final battles.
Pulling himself out of his mental sewer, Naruto finally took account of his surroundings. His target island was now clearly visible, and it looked as though the seas around it formed one gigantic whirlpool. Naruto's boat suddenly jolted and emitted a rather unpleasant crunch, and he realized that he ought to have been paying far more attention. In addition to the whirlpools surrounding the island, it had extremely sturdy coral reefs to boost its natural defenses. Quickly grabbing his bag, Naruto channeled chakra to his feet just as the boat began to flood and ran across the water, whirlpools and all, to his destination, arriving as the sun prepared to set. Deciding it would be best to start searching the island in the morning, Naruto began to set up his campsite. Once everything was in place, he began his familiar meditation. Entering his Toad Sage Mode, Naruto used nature chakra to examine the area for any traces of human life. Detecting nothing out of the ordinary, the young man quickly drifted off to sleep in his tent, worried but excited for what tomorrow might bring him.
AN: As this is my first fanfiction attempt, I'm uncomfortable with how my characterizations are, especially of Naruto, Tsunade, and Hinata. The friend of mine who agreed to edit for me is only up through the Chuunin exams in Naruto, so she can't help there yet. As such, any reviews with letting me know what's out of character and all would be appreciated. This is sort of a testing the waters deal for me, so I'd like to know what anyone who comes across it thinks.
