Passing Down the Torch
Summary: It was a small gift, a gesture that some might believe utterly and completely meaningless. But to Naruto, it meant the world, and to his world, it made all the difference.
Sarutobi Asuma frowned for a second, before walking up to where Uzumaki Naruto was overlooking Konoha, seated atop of his father's stone face in the Hokage monument. Asuma supposed that the boy was paying his respects in his own way, even if he hadn't been present at the village-wide funeral service held for the longest-serving Hokage in history.
Asuma was here on a mission, and his target was the young blond boy in glaring orange. "S'up," he said, waving his hand, knowing that Naruto had most likely heard him coming, as Asuma had made no secret of his approach.
The boy was scared stupid, and he almost fell off the monument with the jump he made. "Dammit, don't sneak up on me!" he yelled, trying to calm himself down.
Asuma laughed. Even in these grim times, the boy managed to put a smile on his face. Perhaps this was why his father had been so fond of the too-bright eyesore. He'd heard the boy described as a ball of sunshine before, and it was only with the grim and gray sky that he realized just how true it could be. Even if the smile on his face was painfully fake.
In a gesture of surrender, Asuma waved his left hand at shoulder level, smiling disarmingly. "Take it as extra training," Asuma said. "Anyway, I won't bother asking if you're okay. None of us is," he admitted, freely. "But the old man wouldn't have wanted us to mourn him forever," he added.
"Yeah... I think he'd just tell us to get back to work. He was a bit of a workaholic, wasn't he?" Naruto asked, a faint, but true, smile on his face, much smaller, yet somehow brighter than the usual grins he sported.
Asuma chuckled. "That's an understatement if I've ever heard one," he replied. "Anyway, his last will was pretty clear, but it'll be resolved in like a month, and there are some things that can't wait that long," the eldest living Sarutobi said, as he gestured towards the right hand he'd just removed from his pants' right pocket.
Naruto blinked in surprise at what he saw. "Is that..."
Asuma smiled. "He wanted you to have this. Something to remember him by," he said, offering Naruto the Hokage's pipe, an item he'd seen, and played with, often when he was spending his time annoying the old man so that he would acccede to buying him ramen.
Naruto took the simple, blackened wooden pipe, almost with reverence, from Asuma's hand and turned around, looking at the village that he'd sworn to protect when he put on his headband. It took a few blinks to clear away all of his tears. He then looked down at the pipe. "Can you..."
"Sure," Asuma said, guessing what Naruto was about to say. "Here, let me show you how to pack it, pay attention, because this takes lots of practice to get right..."