Loving Hatred:
In his psyche, Naruto struggled as he was, once again, overtaken by a nightmare. These nightmares had been occurring for the past week and usually by now Naruto would have forced himself awake. However, just before doing so, he paused and allowed the nightmare to ensue due to something feeling slightly off. This was a contrast to his former nightmares. They usually just contained violence, slaughter and memories of war-related incidents. But this one was strange. Naruto found himself in a pool of blood. The flow of the blood led to a particularly familiar image: Naruto looked up to see Fū, the jinchuriki of the seven-tailed beast. The blood appeared to be originating from a wound in her abdominal region. Her fists were also clenched.
"Why, Chomei?" Fū stuttered. Naruto did nothing but gape out of sheer cluelessness. "It's all your fault!" Fū exclaimed. "All your fault!"
The pool of blood disappeared. Fū started crying before she slowly vanished and Naruto coincidentally awoke. The dark skies, which reminded everyone of the war, had faded along with the akatsuki's presence, a week earlier. The skies were now bright reflections of the newly-forged peace in the world and there was that sweet summer breeze in the air. Naruto jumped out of bed and almost ran towards the fridge. Excitement rose within the jinchuriki as he scanned the innards of the ice-cold container. Naturally, he wound up choosing ramen as he had always done.
Naruto was finishing his morning routine when a bird messenger flew by his apartment and dropped off a letter on his doorstep, before hurriedly flying away. Eager to get the day started and forget about the strange nightmare, Naruto finished what he was doing and stepped out, only to be met by the letter at his feet. Upon gazing aimlessly at the letter, he snapped back to his senses and read it as follows: - Figure out a better way to say this.
Dear Naruto,
Team 7's meeting has started and will continue regardless your presence. This mission is rather important and your aid will be greatly appreciated. This mission entails interacting with another jinchuriki from another village: Takigakure. The usual members will also be present (Sakura, Sasuke and Sai). I just thought you would be more interested in this mission than usual. It seems that's something I never taught well enough to my students, if it can even be taught. Nobody ever appreciates my assignments. Anyways, the later you are, the more you'll miss out on.
Yours sincerely, Kakashi.
Naruto felt a pit of regret and shame enter his stomach. Of course, Kakashi Sensei always did this. Naruto admitted that he forgot about the mission, even though Sasuke had mentioned it to him a few days ago. This sounded important, so Naruto jumped across rooftops, gathering momentum as he did, to arrive at the training grounds speedily.
Once Naruto reached the training grounds, he was unexpectedly met by a speeding kunai which he managed to dodge in the nick of time. In the distance, he saw Fū in an offensive fighting stance with the rest of team 7 not far behind her and assumed she threw the kunai. This all felt strange to Naruto, as he had recently had a nightmare with Fū in it. Before Naruto could compose himself, Fū used teleportation kunai to get Naruto from behind. Naruto ducked under a high kick from the girl and followed up with one of his own low kicks, literally sweeping Fū off her feet. The girl used a substitution jutsu to escape and attempted to use an earth natured jutsu. Kakashi quickly got in between them and broke the fight.
"What the hell is going on here?" Naruto finally managed to exclaim. "Good. Looks like you won't be a sucky teammate to have with such skills. I need people with skills I can trust." Fu replied. She tried to continue, but was interrupted by a rather upset Kakashi. "Have you forgotten about our mission? No wasting unnecessary chakra! Now move out. We've wasted enough time here as it is." Kakashi stated. Everyone in team 7 as well as Fū, sighed as they began moving away from Konoha.
Kakashi explained the details to Naruto which he clearly missed for being late. Their mission was simple. They were to gather some supplies for Takigakure to aid in a potential alliance between them and Konoha. They relocated somewhere in the depths of a forest where they were to meet a merchant the following day. However, at that time, it was dark and everyone was no doubt fatigued from the long journey. They set up camp at decided to rest there for the night. Fū, who had been very quiet, excused herself and asked for a short bit of fresh air to herself. Naruto suspected something was wrong, but chose not to speak about it as it would risk causing an unwanted confrontation. Instead, he waited for everyone to be sound asleep before sneaking in the direction of Fū. She had not wandered too far and Naruto caught up to her in no time at all. Fū appeared to be clenching her fist and in some pain or struggle. Unable to fight his heroic instincts, Naruto rushed over to Fū and asked what the matter was, but got an evidently faux smile and a reply from the girl, "Please go back. It's nothing, really. I just wanted some fresh air and I was frustrated because…" this pause alerted Naruto that she was hiding something. "Because I lost one of my special bugs and can't find him. My bugs mean a lot to me and losing one of them is very tragic." Fū added. She seemed to be spouting random nonsense at this stage, yet Naruto still offered assistance in finding her bugs. Fū gave Naruto a near-death stare and asked him not to worry. Naruto took this as his cue to leave. He couldn't help but feel as though something very personal was bothering her. He knew, however, that this was probably none of his business and went to sleep. He dreamt of the same horrible stuff as the night before.
The next morning, Team 7 along with Fū, got up early to get a head start; compensating for time lost due to the quarrel the previous day. "You know, Naruto might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but he certainly makes up for it with his cheerful and optimistic attitude. Besides, I'm sure you will ensure that things don't get too personal between you two, right Fū?" Kakashi murmured. Attempting to hide the extreme blushes arising on their faces, Naruto and Fū protested and turned away simultaneously. After long debates and slight awkwardness, an irritated Sakura and Sasuke yelled to the rest of the team to keep moving in order to keep good time.
"Everyone duck!" shouted Kakashi. Multiple kunai flew above them as they prepared to counter. There seemed to be 5 ninjas in total. Naruto used shadow clones and hid them using smoke bombs. Sakura jumped to swipe at one of the attacking ninjas and purposefully missed. This confused her opponent and she pounded him for it. Sasuke used a flame jutsu and gave Sai a chance to hide. Sasuke missed his attack as his target dodged the flame by jumping to the left-only to be met by a lightning blade from Kakashi Sensei. Naruto took out the remaining ninjas via a rasengan through the smoke. Fū was in absolute awe as she didn't even have to do anything since their teamwork was so good. The attackers weren't really much to handle, though. At least not for Team 7. Sai looked disheartened that he couldn't be a part of the fight. He barely finished one sketch before the attackers were dealt with. They searched the ninjas and found that they were leaf genin. This explained how they were found, as they were probably well-followed from the village, but not why they attacked. Were they ordered by someone? Had they gone rogue? These questions all flashed through Kakashi's mind as he examined the ninjas.
They walked on, Naruto remembering his most recent nightmare and wondering if it were a sign of or for anything. He thought that it was surely no coincidence that they had met on this mission so shortly after the nightmare. It was especially strange that Fū was still silent during their trip. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Naruto exclaimed, feeling relieved to get that off his chest. "Listen-it's none of your damn business, okay?" Fū replied. "If we're going to be on the same team, I think it's at least a little bit of my business." Naruto snapped. Fū simply ignored his reply and walked on. Naruto felt very angry at that moment, but, knowing a little bit of being depressed and suffering from horrible emotional trauma, he unclenched his tightened fist and let it go.
Arriving at the second stop of their trip, they set up for the night after supper. Naruto was pleased to see he hadn't forgotten his ramen. He sensed something troubling Fū and offered her some. She accepted it, much to his surprise. Kakashi smiled as he stared on, assuming romantic intentions between the two of them. Sakura and Sasuke seemed to adopt his views. The "couple" noticed this and waved them off with stares of their own, indicating they had the wrong idea.
Soon they were practically half asleep as Fū said something that shocked them all, "Thank you, everyone. Really, thank you." Naruto couldn't help but smile as he felt he had done something very right. Fū dozed off almost immediately, followed by everyone else except for Naruto. Naruto shook his head in disgust as he nearly admitted to Fū being cute when she slept. He basically forced himself to sleep to get rid of such thoughts. His dream girl was still Sakura, of course. Whilst asleep, he had the same nightmare as the previous night. Though, this time, Fū appeared to cry less, had looser fists and actually smiled a bit before disappearing.
He suddenly awoke, sensing a strange chakra, but it vanished almost as quickly as it appeared-almost as if someone knew they were being sensed. He minded his own business and went back to sleep. Before reliving the nightmare, he was awoken by a familiar voice. "Hey, kid! Kid! Kid, wake up!" Kurama shouted. He woke up, really annoyed with Kurama. He looked around and surveyed no difference until he stopped at Fū's sleeping bag-she was gone.