Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine, and neither is Final Fantasy. I just own my personal copies of the manga/games :)
Dance of the Pyreflyes, Chapter 2: A first step
by Chronodt
The voyage home was uneventful, if you discount the entire Wave country thanking them and almost throwing a festival in their honor. Even if they didn't learn of it, they even named the newly finished bridge after Naruto. Fortunately they wouldn't discover it for a long time for Kakashi's peace of mind.
On the last leg of the way home, Naruto was locked in a circle trying to convince himself that he HAD to read all those books to become Hokage; arguing that it was too boring to do it, then slipping away into thinking that those books and his scroll would let him kill the stupid fox. Years of habits were warring against ambition and, dared he say it, justice against the fox. He was so focused on that thought that he almost collided with Sakura when they stopped at the gate for identification.
As soon as they passed the gate, Kakashi turned toward the genin: "I'll report to the Hokage, but you have the next 2 days free because you did so well in the mission." and disappeared in a whirlwind of leaves.
Sasuke darkened at the thought of his performance against Haku, swearing to himself that he would not lose again, but he guessed that now, with his sharingan finally active, he would improve exponentially faster. He was sure that after a couple weeks of training with his bloodline, even an enemy like that boy would be insignificant to him. He would finally be able to catch up with that person and finally kill him. He ignored Sakura's plea for a date, as usual, and left to unpack and train. He had a brother to murder.
Sakura, dejected, left without a word.
Naruto, left alone at the gate, decided that he should secure the scroll. As the voice said, the original scroll and letter disappeared during the night. He actually remembered seeing them vanish in a shower of pretty colored lights, just like that flame he saw after he blew himself up. It was strange that he remembered, after all he was sleeping while it happened....
Ah, it wasn't important. Not as much as hiding the copy under a loose floorboard in his apartment, forgoing even a "welcome back" bowl of ramen at Ichiraku's for half an hour more than strictly necessary to ensure it was safe. He reflected on the fact that he really should place some more traps in his apartment, now that he had something truly irreplaceable in it. Prank traps were not enough anymore for the protection of his scroll.
He sighed and added "something about traps" to the list of the 5 books and "something about seals" that he wanted to check in the library. Well, about that he could ask Iruka sensei, too, without anyone suspecting anything.
Satisfied for the moment, he let his feet guide him automatically to the really used road to Ichiraku's ramen.
Ayame and Teuchi were really wonderful people, a great audience even to the most hated boy in Konoha. They laughed at the right moments, stayed focused in the most dramatic scenes and were even appreciative of the little embellishments he added to liven up the story. Uh... the fact that he saved Sasuke AND Kakashi single handedly from a horrible death wasn't that much of an exaggeration, right?
He was reaching the point where he was about to wipe away the mercenaries with over a thousand clones when Iruka arrived.
"Iruka sensei!" exclaimed Naruto, happy to see the chunin instructor.
"Hello, Naruto. How was your first c-rank mission?"
"Uh... it was hard, sensei. It.. well... the client lied." said Naruto, in a small voice. While he didn't mind embellish stories for Ichiraku, Iruka sensei preferred the truth. He learned very well THAT lesson during his stay in the academy.
"L-lied... in... how much he lied, Naruto?" asked a worried Iruka. Since the boy looked happy, he guessed the mission was a success, so he wasn't TOO worried. Nonetheless...
"There was a really rich person who hired missing ninja to kill him." Naruto confessed. He awaited the explosion any moment. Instead, Iruka became icily calm.
"What kind of ninja?"
"Uh... a couple chunin, the Demon brothers... and uh... MomochiZabuzaTheDemonOfTheHiddenMistAliasTheEyebrowlessFreakAndHisSidekick"
Iruka became very pale: "An A-rank missing nin???"
Naruto could only nod.
Teuchi took pity on the boy and told Iruka: "Naruto here was telling us how well he and his team did against them, Iruka-san."
Iruka sighed, and ruffled Naruto's hair. "I hope none of you were seriously injured."
"Sasuke and me were hit by a few senbon, but nothing a night's sleep couldn't fix" he said, downplaying a little their injuries. "Sakura-chan was completely unharmed"
"Then I guess it was a good experience for what a chunin or jonin usually go against in their missions." he said with a sad smile. "After all, with a higher rank there are both higher dangers and responsibilities."
Naruto nodded. Then he remembered what he was thinking before. He prepared himself to tell an almost-truth to Iruka, hoping he would forgive him, eventually.
"Iruka sensei... can you teach me more about traps? I... well... I need to protect my home a little more. Kakashi sensei gave me a couple scrolls that I cannot bring with me everywhere and my home may not be secure enough..."
Iruka nodded. He really felt a little sorry for Naruto's situation, but while as an academy student he could have been in trouble if he set up dangerous traps to catch thieves, as a genin he was allowed semi-sensitive materials, such as d or e-rank jutsu scrolls; not so valuable that a genin could not repay it back even with the meager pay of d-rank missions, but still as jutsu scroll they were restricted from civilian use and he was allowed harmful non-lethal traps to protect them.
Still, he didn't have that much free time....
"Naruto, I just have a couple hours in the evening free, usually, and I may need them for backlog paperwork or grading. But I can give you two evenings a week, starting tomorrow. However, you must promise me that you WILL give your maximum effort in it, or I'll stop."
"Thank you, Iruka sensei! I promise you I will give everything I have! Believe it!" he said, grabbing reflexively his leaf forehead protector and hurrying home (after leaving the money for the ramen)
Once there, he reread his mother's letter, and tried to imagine her from her few words. He also remembered her challenge to find out his father's name. What should be its priority?
"Well.. first to protect the scroll and the letter.. so seals and traps" he mused aloud, trying to not think about how much hard and boring material would be required for it.
"I will have to... have to... ugh.. I cannot even think of it... go to the library...."
He rechecked the book list. The anatomy book sounded interesting, or at least useful. Next probably he should read that "Understanding Chakra". He really hurt when Sakura told him he was an idiot for knowing so little about it. The rest should wait until he read that one.
"And I should study the layout of the library to get that jonin book later, too. At least, I hope they have it."
But as he thought about it, the more likely it was that a restricted book would rather be in a restricted area, such as ANBU headquarters, the Hokage tower library or somewhere as secret as the book itself.
"I also need a higher level kanji dictionary. I'd better buy that." He checked his Gama-chan wallet and noted it was still pleasantly plump, even after 5 bowls of ramen. And he had yet to get his last mission's pay.
"Tomorrow it will be a LONG and BORING day." he said before changing into his pajama and going to sleep.
He looked at his enemy.
He was fat, balding and had a terrifying weapon in his hands. In the past he already experienced it many times, when he had to buy his academy schoolbooks.
That weapon was currently in use to clean the porch of his shop.
Yes, he had very bad memories of that broom. Surely it was lead-plated!
However, this time he had a secret weapon against it! One he didn't have last time he dared to confront its awesome damage potential.
Well... now he could henge. And he did so, entering as a random academy student, and restraining himself from making faces at the man while he selected and bought a medium and advanced kanji dictionary. After all, better safe then sorry, right?
After feeling overjoyed at outsmarting the evil shopkeeper, he decided to keep the transformation up for a while. He never got to try out his endurance with his new control after the tree climbing exercise, and it may be important in his next mission: to infiltrate Konoha library. In a standard ninja mission ranking, for anyone native of Konoha who wasn't Naruto would have rated it somewhere near the letter K. Enemy ninja probably would rate it a C since like Naruto guessed, there were no jutsu scroll or sensitive information in it. Naruto, instead, would rate a high B rank mission for it. The one time he tried to enter it, to borrow a schoolbook the evil Broom Shopkeeper wouldn't let him buy he had been sent away with extreme prejudice. And a hand on a kunai, ready to stab him. He didn't try again, until today.
He tried to remember everything Iruka and his previous sensei told him about espionage missions when he entered the building. Having never been inside and since nobody ever explained to him how a library exactly worked he nervously looked at a row of books, trying to look as if he was looking for a specific title while simultaneously trying to spy on the few people already inside the building. They say that adrenaline sometimes lets the body do incredible things if stressed enough, and he surely demonstrated it since he managed to keep under surveillance 7 different people without them noticing, an incredible feat for the clumsy overactive genin who lived by making himself seen his mission in life. He quickly realized that most people who were looking for specific books were looking at some strange cabinets in a corner then going with purpose toward a goal, finding their book with ease then going to read, while people who wanted something nebulous, such as his book on seals, simply searched for the right category then browsed the titles on display. He decided to find the seal book, as he decided yesterday, and went into the ninja section of the library.
He almost gaped, there were THOUSANDS of books here, divided into subcategories. Some of these titles WERE interesting, and he promised himself he would take a little time to read them. They would surely help him become Hokage!
He reached the "miscellaneous" ninja books, since there wasn't a section dedicated to seals; probably seals were too sensitive to be kept in an open library like this, but he found "An introduction to storage seals" that, even if it didn't look like what he wanted, it looked really useful. "Make your own exploding tags and surprise your neighbors" made him almost literally drool. He LOVED those little exploding tags but they weren't cheap, not at all!
Dismayed in not finding about blood seals, he took those 2 books and brought them into the reading room. Even if neither of them was what he needed, they were a treasure mine to Naruto, making leverage on his pranking instinct and sparking his imagination about seeding 200 exploding notes into a trap to punish sensei's lateness. He had to make heavy use of the medium kanji dictionary, but he no longer complained for its expense.
Taking copious notes from the books, he left 4 hours later when he felt the strain of the henge, and left before being discovered. After a quick lunch he tried to make his first exploding tag. 30 tries later he managed a successful one and 2 hours later he had 15 tags ready to be tested in a training area. He was surprised on how well they performed, almost like store bought ones and he thought that this branch of the ninja arts had definitely potential if results were as cool as these.
Leaving a clone to craft tags in his apartment, he returned to the library using the same disguise, took again those 2 books and continued reading them until evening. He returned to his apartment to get the tags his clone made in the last few hours. After all, Iruka may make him use them!
Leaving the clone to continue making tags, he left for the academy building.
"Naruto! Over here!" came the greeting from Iruka-sensei as soon as he approached the building. He saw Iruka-sensei in the practice area and joined him. He saw a few different traps already assembled.
"Since your grades in trap making as well as trap detection were horrible, I'll start from the beginning. Any questions?"
Naruto thought about it. It really was depressing to have to do those lesson again, but without a teacher out to ridicule him instead of teaching he may truly learn it this time!
Then he though that Iruka sensei may help him with seals, too, or at least praise him for it. It wasn't as if storage seals and exploding tags were restricted to genin.
"Can you check them, Iruka sensei? I made them this afternoon. I tried a couple of them and they worked well." Naruto passed the small paper slips to Iruka, who examined them with a surprised and (he hoped) impressed expression.
"These are good, Naruto. And I can see them getting better one after the other. I didn't know you were interested in seals. They are very useful in traps, you know, but at that level you should really ask your jonin sensei. It's his responsibility to teach you genin level skills and above. If you manage to pass my course with good grades, I'll make a joint request to Kakashi-san."
"Really?" asked Naruto, overjoyed on the thought of finally having something he could beat Sasuke at. Not that he admitted that even to himself.
The next 2 hours were filled with the basics of trapping, and Naruto made incredible progress due to his extreme motivation. Iruka himself could not believe it. He managed to learn more in 2 hours than he did in half his last year at the academy. Was it all due to motivation?
Returning home, he saw another 50-pack of exploding tags ready to use, put them away and fell asleep, barely noticing the memories of himself making hundreds of tags, learning to make better and better ones. He still didn't notice it even the next day, when he repeated this day's events, making tags and finishing with physical and chakra training by climbing another tree while throwing kunai to a target.
The 2 days' reprieve from his team came to an end and he found himself again waiting for Kakashi-sensei.
Not wanting to be seen reading academy level books by his Sakura-chan he simply waited, after naturally asking her out and being rejected again. But instead of idly waiting he revised mentally the steps of making the explosive tag. He had yet to make a successful storage seal, they were much harder than the tags (which were instable by design), and required a much more firm hand. He realized his handwriting was horrible, due to very little practice in the academy (he he he) so he had to overcome that little handicap to do good seals. Nonetheless his tags were now solidly store level. It was a wonder they were so expensive if they were so easy to make, but it was probably the time needed to make a good amount of them that inflated the price, but he could take advantage of this... a little henge and he could sell it to a shop and make a little extra pocket money if he needed it.
2 hours of waiting and Kakashi-sensei finally appeared. They did their customary useless d-rank, Naruto got mauled by Sakura for asking her out and was ignored by the bastard... but he managed to not screw up anything. After a little team exercise, they were left free for the afternoon, where he practiced storage seals until he managed to make a working one. It could only hold something about the weight of an apple, but it was a start. This evening he had his second appointment with Iruka sensei, and got another 2 hours of trap instruction, much harder than before and much faster than 2 days ago. Evidently Iruka realized his awesomeness, too. He showed him his first successful storage seal and he complimented him for it! He was so giddy that he blurted out without even realizing it his need for a blood seal to lock his personal scrolls, and to his surprise, Iruka simply nodded and promised him to let him borrow a book on the argument for his next lesson in 3 days, provided he managed to perfect his storage seals in the meantime.
Naturally he worked on it almost day and night, both to make Iruka proud and for the protection of his scroll, that he had not dared to pull out of its hiding place since the first night and was waiting to be able to protect it at least with genin level traps and the blood seal.
His team meetings were ridiculous compared to Iruka sensei's instruction; the only things they did was team building exercises and a little sparring. Even the library was more useful. He managed to find a book in the ninja section about infiltration, especially on how to falsify documents. He needed to borrow the books listed in mom's letter, at least the 4 non restricted ones but the library would NEVER let the demon take them, and if they knew he was interested in them they would likely take them permanently off the bookshelves. Furthermore they were restricted to genin level and above, so he couldn't just henge into anyone and just ask for them. That meant either impersonating some other genin, that could lead him into an ocean of trouble even with the old man, or a completely new identity, with a forged ID, that he COULD get away by explaining his circumstances to the Hokage if he ever got caught, with just a token punishment, as long as he didn't use his counterfeit identity to get material he wasn't already entitled to as genin. The book suggested that in an environment where people were familiar to the shinobi, he should use a disguise as far as the original as possible, so no one would likely associate the two of them even if he was somehow betrayed by mannerism or ingrained habits. A timid black haired girl would be good for the disguise, but it would be hard to do, especially with his flamboyant personality. He even had to lay off the orange, he was too well known for it. Not too attractive or he would be hit on by guys... urgh better not think about it... leaf headband on her hips, since he always had it on the head, white and black dress, not too fancy, still to avoid male eye and naturally no whisker marks. Those were hard to get rid of, a result of youki in his system, he guessed. He hoped that by killing the fox they would finally go away.
It took a whole week to create the disguise using his Oiroke no Jutsu and a second one to learn a new set of mannerism for the girl, who Naruto named Akiko Iwasa, a genin in the reserve list with no listed jonin sensei, complete with a medical history of a few training accidents cured by a retired civilian doctor that moved away to the farmlands with his family. He was tempted to let the old man Hokage know about it, especially because he realized his identification would not hold against something more than a civilian level security like the library, to avoid being mistaken for an enemy ninja. But he realized that if he told the old man, he would tell Kakashi, who would tell Sakura and Sasuke just to tease him and he would never hear the end of it. He didn't even consider that the Hokage could give that knowledge to Kakashi as sensitive information or that Kakashi could be trusted to not tell it to the rest of the team. Sometimes the fear of public humiliation is worse than the truth and he had been betrayed once by a teacher, so he would not give ammunition to someone he wasn't sure didn't hate him. Sure, Kakashi-sensei didn't SEEM to hate him, but neither did Mizuki and the way he insisted on teamwork while neglecting their personal training showed that he didn't care about them as individuals, but just as his soldiers. That or he was so incredibly lazy that made Shikamaru look like an overactive jumping monkey. He just hoped on the lazy theory.
Admiring his new genin library card, "Akiko" brought home the first of the five required books: Understanding Chakra. He realized that mom's letter may have given that order of books on purpose, so even if the anatomy book was inviting, he was now fascinated as well from Chakra, after having witnessed its versatility in seals. Reverting from the henge away from prying eyes, he returned to his apartment and moved away the book on seals that Iruka lent to him, just like promised: An introduction to seals, a genin to chunin level introductory book on the basics of sealing. Thanks to the book, he now knew why the exploding tags were so much easier to do than the storage seals: the former were e-rank and the latter was a c-rank seal, and that would mean he jumped from a difficulty rated around the level of an average academy student to a high genin one. Excited from the prospect of finally making way into understanding his family legacy he took both the dictionaries and the new book and began reading.
