A/N: HELLO.
Chapter Two
The Gambler and the Monk
Though my actions may seem questionable to my friends, I know that what I'm doing is right. It's for the greater good. Oh how that phrase has paved even the worse of roads with good intentions. I can only hope that I am the exception to the rule.
Line Break
Naruto didn't look back as he strode to the door, yanked it open and stepped through, emerging into a much larger underground chamber lit by large electric lights that hung down from the ceiling illuminating a large black scoreboard on the far wall.
This place could house a small army. Naruto thought with wonder as he looked around.
Catching the scent of water, Naruto looked down and saw that he was standing on a metal grate. The grate connected to, and interlaced with, a large network of subterranean water flows that formed small box areas of equal size.
"Uzumaki Naruto?" A lazy voice asked from directly behind Naruto.
Naruto's heart nearly stopped. Twice now within the same day someone had snuck up on him without his hearing. This was starting to become a very disconcerting habit.
Spinning around, he saw a silver haired man who appeared in his mid twenties, dressed in a green Jōnin's vest and black trousers. A Konoha headband was slung sideways on his head so that it covered his right eye just as a mask covered the lower half of his face. He held an orange book in a gloved right hand, left tucked under his right armpit. His brown eye scanned the book's page with a rapid and surprisingly intense fervor that led Naruto to believe that it wasn't him who had called if they weren't the only two in the cavernous room.
"Who are you?" Naruto asked.
"Yup." The man said, snapping the book shut and stuffing it in his side pouch. "You're him."
"Me?" Naruto asked, confused.
The Jōnin looked around the empty cavern before returning his one-eyed gaze back to Naruto.
"Do you see anyone else around here?" He asked.
Naruto blushed in embarrassment.
"No." He said in a reluctant tone. "I don't."
"Then we can assume… what?"
"You don't have to be a bastard about it." Naruto grumbled.
"No, I don't, but it's fun." The man said cheerfully, giving Naruto a weird
half-smile with the closed, upward curving of his eyelid. On the whole, Naruto found being on the receiving end of his quasi smile quite disconcerting.
"My name's Kakashi, jounin, badass, and extremely bored most of the time. I'll be taking you to your bunk today."
"A Jōnin escorting me?" Naruto asked with surprise.
"Mm-hmm." The man hummed, stepping forward and waving for Naruto to follow.
He did so, falling into line behind the white haired man as they made their way towards a small spec of a door at the other end of the room.
"You see." Kakashi continued. "You're now part of a rather secret program. If it succeeds, it'll replace how the academy handles it's pregraduation for certain qualified children."
"If?" Naruto asked a bit too loudly and not at all pleased with the word.
"We're going to work you until you beg for death." Kakashi said with disturbing carelessness. "You're going to be sweating, bleeding, begging, for it to end, and that'll be before lunch. Chin up, it's going to be fun."
Kakashi turned to look back at Naruto as he continued to walk. "Welcome to Sheol." He said with another one of those eye smiles. Another trend Naruto suspected he would grow to dislike.
Naruto fixed his attention on the door resolutely. He wasn't going to give Kakashi the satisfaction of seeing just how unnerved he was. This was all so new and he felt as though he were struggling to keep pace. Where he grew up - the outer factions of Konoha - new was almost never a good thing. Konoha policed her inner and far richer sections well, but the village had yet to recover well enough to run strict patrol over the peripheral districts where he initially grew up before joining Konoha's academy and receiving a small monthly stipend to move into a small apartment near the school.
"No reaction?" Kakashi asked, causing Naruto too look up and face the Jōnin who regarded him lazily with his one eye over his shoulder.
"No point." Naruto mumbled, "I'm committed already. No point worrying about it now." Before looking down again.
Naruto could practically feel the cyclope's gaze burning into the top of his head. He knew it was a rather blunt way of looking at things, but he was a practical person by necessity – and his view of the situation seemed a fair enough estimation in his eyes.
"We're here." Kakashi announced.
Naruto looked up once more to see Kakashi waving with mock grandeur at a steel door set into the wall with heavily reinforced pins. If Naruto didn't know better, he'd have sworn it was a prison door.
"Your bunk is the one at the end. Your personal affects have been moved from your previous residence and sealed into a scroll placed into a box at the foot of your bed. You'll be taught how to unseal them before the week is out."
Naruto blinked in surprise. Sealing? Wasn't that an advanced Genin or even a low Chunin skill? He must have let his surprise show because Kakashi cleared his throat, getting Naruto's attention, before saying, "I was not kidding when I said we're going to be pushing you children. Sealing is a dangerous skill but all it really requires is a steady hand and a bit of chakra control. The reason it is listed as a Chunin skill is because of its impractically for new ninja. You won't have that issue."
"Oh." Was all Naruto could think of to say. What else was there? He was going to be worked into the ground and be made better for it. "You said the bunk at the end. There will be others with me? I thought Ibiki said we were going to be competing against one another."
"On the whole you'll be competing against one another, but Konoha isn't like the bloody mist. We aren't going to have you kill each other at the end." Naruto paled at the Jōnin's words. "You'll be working in a kind of splinter cell, a unified group of three but interchangeable with the other groups when needed. You'll understand once you get the flow of it. Now, in you go. Your bunk mates will be along later once assigned."
Naruto grabbed the door latch and with a heave pulled it open, the door sliding easily and soundlessly on well-oiled hinges. The room beyond was nearly pitch black, illuminated only by the narrow line that streamed in around his frame. He could just barely make out three small cots place in a single file line against the adjacent wall, three iron chests and strange formless locks with swirling marks just before the beds.
"Home sweet home." Kakashi said, flicking a switch on the wall by the door.
Naruto frowned, eyeing a small slot under the switch next to which was a nub in the wall.
"That's the request box." The Jōnin said from beside him, reaching forward and taking hold of the nub, unscrewing it from the wall to reveal a pen. He tapped the area above the slot and a seal appeared, glowing briefly, before disappearing again, but not before a small sheet of paper emerged from the hole. Taking hold of the paper, Kakashi pulled it free and handed it to Naruto, who took it and inspected it. The paper was full of boxes, each of which had small text over them labeled with words such as weapons, instructional, sealing paper, tools, and recreational.
"If you need anything during your stay here just write it down and return it to the slot, someone will see to it that you get what you require. The shower is at the end of the room." Kakashi pointed at a small door by the furthest bunk. "Enjoy your stay."
Kakashi retreated, closing the door behind him as he left. Naruto stood alone in the room with nothing except the phantom pains of his spar with the ANBU earlier. He had always healed quickly, at least for as long as he could remember, but the pain would remain for a day or so before becoming just another memory.
"Yeah." Naruto muttered despondently to the empty room, trudging over to his cot that was more a small collection of sticks and netting than anything, and threw himself on it. His ordeal with the ANBU and subsequent interview – if you could call it that – had left him drained, so it wasn't long before he drifted off, unable to stay awake to greet the other two he'd been lumped in with.
Line Break
The sound came like the bellow of a charging forest tiger. Naruto jerked awake, thrashing upright and blinking frantically in an effort to clear his eyes of sleep, the two dark forms beside him writhed similarly in the dim light cast by the lights above. He was usually a light sleeper, but the previous day's prank and subsequent after activities had deepened his sleep more than he usually allowed.
Naruto's eyes widened when he saw what was making the noise. Water. A massive amount of water was streaming into the room through vents in the walls at the four corners of the room. Already the clear liquid had risen several feet the relatively small room.
The hell! Naruto thought with panic, his eyes darting to the closed exit doors. Who removed the door?
The door he'd come through the other day had disappeared, leaving only a smooth stone slab in its place. Naruto leapt from his cot and water splashed around his legs as he ran to where the door had once been. With nowhere to the water to escape too, he had only moments to escape before the water reached.
"No point." A familiar voice said causing Naruto to whirl around and see a boy his same age with black hair dressed in a blue shirt and black shorts standing in front of where Kakashi had indicated the bathroom to be the other day. Standing beside him was a pink haired girl wearing a red vest and blouse. "They've removed the bathroom as well." Sasuke, the black haired boy, said.
"How do we get out?" Sakura nearly cried. "They must have made a mistake when they assigned us this room!"
There was no mistake. Naruto thought, his eyes darting around the room looking for some method of escape- his old instincts from his time on the streets kicking back in. They said they were going to push us to our limits. They sure haven't wasted any time.
"Up there." Sasuke said, pointing to a metal grate in the ceiling. The shaft door was connected to a wire that ran along the ceiling's length and to the wall where it disappeared. "It's just big enough for one of us to fit through."
"Hoist me up." Naruto said, stepping forward to stand beneath the opening. "I'll hoist you guys up once I'm up there."
"Listen here, my vagabond friend." Sasuke snarled. "I noticed it first, therefor I should go first. Once I'm at the top, and if I feel like it, I'll make sure that the two of you get to safety."
"Fat chance in hell!" Naruto shot back in anger. "Of the two of us, I'm a lot more trustworthy than some spoiled rich kid."
"Had you been blessed with the good fortune of having even barely adequate breeding you would understand and accept that I am your superior by birthright alone, never mind actual skill."
"I'd rather just wait for the water to rise and allow me to escape." Naruto snapped with a glare. "At least then I don't have to touch your delicate body."
"The grate." Sakura said nervously. The water that had risen to their waist now.
Naruto looked up again. The grate was slowly sliding closed, the silver glow of a seal around the frame indicating how the metal was making its supernal movement.
"It's closing as the water rises." She said speaking to Sasuke, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. "I didn't notice it at first, the idiot was arguing with you and not letting me focus. Unless we get up there soon it's going to close."
"Lift me up." Sasuke commanded her.
Sakura paled even further than she already had given the situation, the contrast between her skin and hair was quite the sight.
"I'm not strong or tall enough." She said.
"You're a ninja, enhance your strength with chakra." Sasuke snapped impatiently.
Sakura's eyes widened further, sweat beading at the sides of her larger than average forehead.
"I'm not very good at the, ah, more physical aspects of chakra." She said weakly.
Naruto turned away from them as Sasuke snapped out a retort. He wasn't going to touch that stuck-up, rich prick unless it was to knock him one to the moon. There were other ways to survive this without giving in to Sasuke's demands.
Walking over to the cots, Naruto grasped one of the cots that were completely submerged now, intending to lift it up so he could wedge one of the edges of the frame in between the grate and opening to prevent it from closing fully. Then, all he had to do was wait for the water to raise enough to get his hands on the metal and push it out of the way. The only problem with that plan was that the cots were bolted to the ground. Naruto gave it another good shake, this time enhancing his muscles with chakra to give himself more strength.
The frame didn't even creak. It must have been reinforced with a Seal.
He spun back around at the sound of a splash, turning to see Sasuke sputtering from where he'd tried to jump and grab hold of the grate. Naruto'd already considered that and decided that the water had already risen so much that he'd never be able to jump high enough, even with chakra enhanced legs.
Biting back a curse, Naruto glanced around once more, desperately trying to find something he could use. Life as a thief had given him an ability to think under pressure. Every decision made on the street was the difference between life and death. This was almost like working Yutin's beat once more, people he didn't trust and wouldn't depend on and all.
There wasn't anything and now he was now almost treading water. If Sasuke didn't cave in and lift him up soon neither of them were going to able to get a solid enough footing to hoist the other up.
"We're running out of time." Naruto said, sloshing forward to rejoin them. "Lift me up or we're going to die."
The Uchiha glared at him, black eyes unwavering as he held Naruto's gaze. Naruto had to repress the urge to hit the pampered son of a noble in the face.
"I would rather die than help you." Sasuke said, though his voice was hesitant.
Naruto swore, his survival instincts briefly overruling his hatred for nobility. Cupping his hands, he set his stance and renewed his glare at the Uchiha who smirked as he set his foot in Naruto hands in preparation to jump.
"On my three." Sasuke said with a slight smirk.
Naruto was going to harm the Uchiha.
"One."
No, harming wasn't good enough. He was going to humiliate the prideful Uchiha.
"Two."
That wasn't enough either. He was going to both harm and humiliate the Uchiha.
"Three.
Naruto grunted as he slammed chakra into his arms to give them strength, pushing upward on the Uchiha who was also strengthening his body with chakra. With a sucking splashing, Naruto propelled the raven-haired teen upwards, his hands clapping onto the grate with a wet, slapping sound.
"Good, now hoist us up." Naruto said, looking up at the Uchiha who'd pulled himself up into the shaft and was looking down at them from where the vent took a right turn.
"Why should I?" He asked, his voice cold. "If you die here, part of my competition will already have been removed. Why should I help you?"
Naruto had known this would happen. You couldn't trust nobility. They would always look out for themselves and screw everyone else. It was in their nature. Mercy was nothing more than a word to them.
"Because without us they'll get rid of you." Naruto said. He wasn't sure that was true but he didn't have very many options at the moment. All he could do was go with his gut.
It must have worked because Sasuke hesitated in thought, obviously thinking about Naruto's shot in the dark. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Naruto continued.
"If we die Konoha won't train you. They'll never trust you enough to put you on a team or give you a mission that involves a client for fear you'll kill them to if you lose patience. You'll fail your family."
That must have hit a nerve. Sasuke's face contorted in anger for a moment before clearing and regaining its usual blank, noble composure. However, he leaned down, bending at the waist and extended his hand. Naruto quickly turned and grabbed hold of Sakura, lifting her as she briefly voiced her protest before realizing what he was doing.
She took hold of Sasuke's hand and he lifted both her and Naruto - who was still clinging to her waist - up. Chakra was a wonderful and useful thing indeed.
Clambering up into the vent, Naruto fell into a crawl just behind Sakura as they followed the dark tunnel in an effort to escape. After what seemed like an eternity, Naruto felt the disturbingly familiar tingle of water on his hands as he pulled himself forward. The water in the room they had left was still rising and filling the vent they were crawling through.
He nearly stopped moving as claustrophobia seized him and the reality of his situation hit him. He was in a very small tunnel that was steadily filling with water behind two people who saw him as nothing more than gutter trash. The people who owned the vent he was crawling through were apparently unconcerned with their safety. It was not a very tenable position to be in.
Sakura, who had been steadily crawling in front of him, suddenly disappeared, falling downwards.
What the? Naruto thought but was unable to get further than that as the vent shifted beneath him and he began to slid forward and down.
Luckily, the fall was brief and they were dropped out of the enclosure and into the giant room with the electric board he'd been in the other day.
"That was a rather pathetic display of teamwork." An annoyingly familiar lazy voice commented. "Rise and shine. It's time to get started."
The three of them straightened up from where they'd fallen. Naruto's eyes widened as he noticed Kakashi standing just a few feet away, hands locked in a sign. Awed, he watched as the water he'd observed running under the grate the other day leap to life and strike at them like a coiled serpent.
Naruto wasn't fast enough to dodge out of the way of the blast. He choked on the water as he struggled against the torrent, one of his two bunkmates slapping him in the face in their own struggle made his gasp in a lung full of liquid. The water stopped and Naruto coughed violently in an attempt to purge his lungs of the accursed liquid.
"I'll kill you." Naruto rasped out as he cleared his vision, only to blink in surprise when there was no cyclopean ninja anywhere to be seen. "As soon as I see you again." Naruto finished lamely.
"He's fast." Sasuke's seemingly ever present voice said from beside him. Did the Uchiha have to follow him everywhere? First, the academy and now here. Nobility were always shoving their nose in where it didn't belong.
"Figures you'd also be here, bastard." Naruto growled turning to where Sasuke stood with his arms folded, somehow appearing in control despite his soaked clothing, raven hair plastered to the side of his angular, aristocratic face.
Naruto still found faces like Sasuke's slightly unnerving. He had grown up among the rounder faces the 'peasants' and thieves cultivated. Naruto even knew the phycology behind it. The softer, baby-like faces inspired a feeling a trust between mark and thief, making it easier to form a bond and then stab them in the back. Perhaps that's why he'd never made a very good criminal. Whoever bastard him had noble blood in them, passing on to him a strange cross between a hawkish face, with a slight rounding at the cheekbones just above his birthmarks.
"Hn." Sasuke grunted, not even sparing him a glance at the insult.
"Don't insult Sasuke." Sakura said as she picked herself off the ground from where the water had knocked her over.
Naruto still felt chagrined that he'd once had a crush on her when he'd first arrived at the academy. He'd never seen a hair color as vibrant as she had. The less memorable you were as an orphan in the outer district, the longer you lived. The shade of pink Sakura possessed would have made her even more noticeable than he was with his whiskers and blond hair.
"They're lining up in front of the electric board." Sasuke said in his usual controlled tones, pointing forward with an outstretched finger.
Following where Sasuke was indicated, Naruto saw that, indeed, eight other equally sodden people were shuffling into a single file line where the board hung underneath which the Hokage stood, resplendent as ever in his white robes of office.
"Looks like most of our class was accepted into the same program as us." Sakura observed.
"They're the sons and daughters of clan heads." Naruto snorted derisively. "Of course they got in, money pays."
"I'm going." Sasuke said flatly, walking forward and leaving Naruto and Sakura behind.
"I'm coming too." Sakura said in a voice so sweet Naruto wondered if Sasuke could contract diabetes from it. If so, he would need to harness that power and use it himself.
Shrugging, Naruto followed and took up a position in line next to a black haired boy slightly older than himself with pale eyes and dress in a white tunic with matching pants. A Hyuuga? That was interesting, if not unexpected. The class he was in had a female Hyuuga in it. How closely were they related? He didn't know enough of that clan's workings to guess, but he'd heard rumors that they didn't breed outside their own clan that often. They were careful about not marrying to close to the other lines, but refused to 'dilute' their bloodline with the rabble of Konoha.
"Welcome to Sheol." The Hokage greeted them from a slightly elevated dais, opening his arms wide. "It's so nice seeing your young faces looking up at me so early this morning."
Naruto frowned, when had old man Hokage developed such a sadistic sense of humor?
"As you've all been told," the Hokage continued, "this training program has been instated for two reason. The first and primary reason is to find the next set of Sanin. The second is to test this program for future generations of ninja graduating the academy to go through."
The Hokage lowered his hands, clasping them in front of him as he smiled down at them, his brown eyes twinkling.
"I won't delay you long, your instructors are eager to get started, but there are a few things I would like to explain first. You all have been placed in cells of three, with a presiding Jōnin should you require any advice in the future."
The screen behind the Hokage lit up with names. Naruto quickly located his own name inside a bracket with Sakura and Sasuke, Kakashi's name listed just outside.
Brilliant. Naruto thought. Revenge will be easy. I may not have made a great thief, but I'm second to none in pranking. I'll make that one-eyed creep rue the day he messed with Uzumaki Naruto.
"These people are not only your competition but will also be your family for the next year before you begin taking missions. It's then that scores will begin being tallied. After that come the eliminations." The Hokage's smile widened. "Good luck."
Naruto flinched as a man in skintight green spandex appeared in front of him, callused hands at his sides. He had large brown eyes that sat underneath large, caterpillar-like eyebrows. Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto noticed the other students disappearing as, what he assumed to be instructors, appeared behind them and dropped a hand on their shoulder.
"My name is Might Guy and I'll be your sparing partner and instructor for the next five hours. May your Flames of Youth burn brightly." Guy said in an exuberant voice.
Then, without further preamble, Guy attacked with savage intensity. An overwhelming right haymaker from the larger man sent him sprawling across the ground, shattering Naruto's hastily erected guard with apparent ease.
"Your stance is too narrow." Guy said, stepping forward to loom over where Naruto was picking himself off the ground. "When facing an opponent bigger than you are, sacrifices and accommodations must be made. I am faster and stronger than you are, that makes defense your only, youthful, option."
Naruto blinked in surprise. The man was clearly insane. Why else would anyone dress and speak like that?
Guy then spent the next five hours running him through different stances, occasionally stepping over and forcing Naruto's body into certain positions when he failed to understand what exactly he wanted. Naruto had never been the greatest at Taijutsu, and despite his instincts, Naruto found himself liking the instructor. He was critical and brutally direct, not to mention his verbal tick based on the different variations of the word "youthful". It was a marked change from the airy, dismissful, way people had treated him at the academy. The instructors there often flat-out ignored him because they either fell in with the crowd that hated him for reasons he didn't understand, or didn't like him because of his dubious background. And of the two he preferred the later. At least then they had a reason based in logic, no matter how shaky.
The training was like nothing Naruto had ever experienced before. They would switch between instructions and application, where Guy would show him the moves and then test him and see if Naruto had been paying attention. It had only taken once, and just for a split second, when his attention had wandered for the lesson not to let it happen again to be beaten into him. At the academy he'd only been scolded if he'd drifted. Now, Naruto was still nursing the bruised rib along with the myriad of other injuries he had received.
"We're done, my youthful student." Guy said suddenly from where he had been standing on the 'sidelines' as Naruto had begun to think of the box-like grates, watching him as he went through the Kata. "Take him to my eternal rival." Guy finished with a nod to someone behind Naruto.
This time he was ready for the wrenching sensation that came with the technique, whatever it was, that allowed for near instantaneous transport between points. He hadn't grown any fonder of the experiences, but he could appreciate it for its usefulness.
This time he appeared in what appeared to be an offshoot of the main cavern he'd just been evacuated from, only this place wasn't nearly so large.
Is that a waterfall? Naruto wondered before squeezing his eyes shut and reopening them. The waterfall was still there, a foaming spray that fell from an opening near the ceiling and into a large basin that was drained by a small void at the bottom. If Naruto had to guess, he'd say it was fed by one of the channels that were scattered around Konoha's periphery. Around the basin were large trees, unfamiliar to him, with thick brown trunks and limbs but possessed few leaves that were so indicative of Konoha's surrounding forests. Naruto looked up and found that just like before, this cavern had no opening to the sky. How was the tree fed without sunlight?
"Not too bad." The Cyclopes said from where he was leaning against one of the trees he'd been inspecting, hands folded in front of his chest. Naruto noticed several slashes a few feet above where the masked ninja's head. "You're one of four that didn't puke when brought here."
"Four?" Naruto asked, catching on to the odd number. "I was only sparing for five hours. How could you have been through four people already?"
"Actually, you're the last." Kakashi explained. "Ten little kiddies have already come and gone. You guys are still young and so don't have much chakra. Over the next two weeks you'll be able to last longer, but until then I don't expect too much."
Naruto shifted, wincing slightly as his muscles protested the movement. He'd only been still for just a few moments and already his body was locking up.
"You'll get used to it." Kakashi said, eyeing him with a knowing glint in his one visible eye. "Either that or you'll wash out and not have to worry about it anymore." He finished cheerily. "Here, eat this."
Kakashi flipped him a brown packet that Naruto caught mal-adroitly with exhausted limbs. Sitting down and opening it, Naruto found several pills and a single ration bar.
"Don't make that face." Kakashi chided. "You'll get proper dinners in the evening when you're done training."
"And the pills?" Naruto asked, regarding the small multi-colored tablets dubiously.
"Vitamins and enhancement drugs. Pretty standard for ANBU, if a bit pricy to just be handing out."
"Steroids?"
Kakashi scoffed. "Hardly. And nothing so crude. Just natural supplements to restore what you loose during the day. You'll be eating those for some time, so get used to the taste."
Begrudgingly, Naruto swallowed the pills and downed the ration bar, the grainy texture sticking to his throat uncomfortably.
"Good. Now stand." Kakashi ordered.
Naruto did so slowly, wearily pulling himself to his feet. He hadn't been this exhausted since the old days, back when he'd been a part of Korin's thieving crew. What made it even worse was that it was probably only lunchtime, though it was difficult to tell without a watch or the sun to estimate by.
"Good." Kakashi said curtly. "Now, let's begin. What do you know of chakra?"
Naruto almost groaned. Theoretics? If there were an area worse than his Taijutsu, it would be his grasp on chakra. He'd only recently mastered the ability to hold the leaf to his forehead using only chakra.
"You use chakra to do jutsu… and stuff." Naruto finished lamely, acutely aware just how stupid he sounded.
Kakashi clicked his tongue in irritation that made Naruto's ears burn in embarrassment. It was only the first day and he clearly wasn't making a good name for himself. First, he hadn't been able to land a blow of the green spandex clad weirdo and now he failed to answer a presumably simple question. The difference between him and his competitors suddenly seemed like an insurmountable chasm laid before him.
"It seems as though I'm going to have a very blank slate with you, aren't I?" Kakashi asked with a sigh.
That was something, at least. He hadn't been dismissed out of hand. Naruto drew a bit of comfort from that. He would get better, one chasm at a time.
"Chakra is the blending of physical and spiritual energy used in balance with one another. Now," Kakashi leveled an even, one eyed gaze at Naruto, "I assume you know how to enhance your body with chakra?"
Naruto flushed in embarrassment.
"Yeah." He said stubbornly.
Kakashi nodded.
"Show me."
Naruto flooded his body with chakra. His eyes became sharper and the world leapt into crystalline clarity, each color becoming slightly more vibrant and every sound that much easier to hear, not even the rustling of Kakashi's clothing as he breathed escaped his notice. He clenched his fists, knowing that his strength was much higher than it was a moment ago although his muscles hadn't increased in size.
With an exhale Naruto punched the air, his fist whizzing with the motion. Thanks to Guy's training the phantom attack was a lot more focused and controlled than it had been that morning.
"What is the first rule of chakra manipulation?" Kakashi asked abruptly, his voice louder than a moment ago thanks to his enhanced hearing.
Naruto frowned. What had Iruka said about that? His instructor had gone over that aspect of chakra on the day Naruto had clogged each of the upperclassmen's toilets. Something about...
"I don't know." Naruto said dejectedly.
"Alright. Let me phrase it another way. On the street, what determines whether one person survives or another, ruling out physical advantages?"
Naruto paused, frowning. Ruling out physical advantages then the answer was obviously intelligence, but that couldn't be right. He had been told on numerous occasions that he wasn't smart and yet he'd survived. So obviously there was something that set one apart from the other.
"Instinct." Naruto said again.
Kakashi shook his head. "A decent answer, but not what I'm looking for. Instinct doesn't have much to do with chakra, as you have to know what you're doing. There is something you have to understand about chakra, Naruto."
"Another rule?"
"More a philosophy," Kakashi said. "It has to do with consequences."
Naruto's frown deepened.
"What do you mean?"
"Every action we take has consequences, Naruto. I've found that applies to chakra as well as life. The person who can best judge the consequences will be most successful. Take enhancing your strength with chakra for instance, what are its consequences?"
Naruto shrugged.
"You get stronger."
"What happens when you're carrying something heavy when you run low and can't fuel yourself any longer?"
Naruto hesitated.
"I suppose you'd drop it."
"And if its' too heavy you could seriously hurt yourself. Ninja have died because they've shrugged off an injury with chakra only to die of that same wound once their chakra ran out."
"I see." Naruto said quietly.
"HA!"
Naruto jumped in shock, throwing his hands up over his enhanced ears.
"Ow." He complained, glaring at Kakashi.
Kakashi had the audacity to smile.
"Enhancing all of your senses at once has consequences as well. If someone produces a flash of light or a loud sound, you can be blinded or stunned." Kakashi explained. "You'll eventually learn to control your chakra well enough to where you can pick and choose which senses you want to enhance and by how much, but for now you have to know when and where to use your abilities."
Kakashi walked over to a seemingly random tree, and turned to face Naruto once more.
"Climb this tree using only chakra." He said.
Naruto felt his eyes widen.
"How?" he asked.
Was such a thing possible? It seemed likely considering what he'd heard some of the high-level jutsu chakra was capable of conjuring, but climbing trees seemed somehow mundane when placed in comparison with fire tornados and flying boulders.
In answer to his question, Kakashi faced the tree, lifted a foot and calmly pressed it against the trunk and proceeded to walk up the tree at a ninety-degree angle as though it were perfectly normal. Naruto gaped as the one-eyed Jounin ascended the tree as though it were the ground.
"Follow me to the top." Kakashi called over his shoulder. "We'll move on to the next step once you've mastered this one."
Naruto watched carefully as the silver-haired ninja pick his way around the bare branches until he came to a stop at a limb still thick enough to support his weight where he stepped down. Pulling a book from his pocket, Naruto observed Kakashi place his back against the tree and slowly slide down until he was reclining comfortably. Then, without a word, the man popped the same orange book he'd been reading when Naruto'd first met him open and resumed where he'd left off.
The day is only getting older. Naruto told himself as he wearily made his way over to the tree and stared at it blankly. How the hell was he supposed to do this?
Imitating Kakashi, Naruto lifted a foot and placed it against the trunk. It wasn't made of some sort of powerful Velcro, so that idea was out.
It must be like the leaf exercise. Naruto realized with horror. Instead of using chakra to affix the leaf to my forehead, I'm supposed to stick the bottoms of my feet to the tree.
Channeling chakra to his feet and into the tree, Naruto felt something. It was like a bond or contract of sorts between he and the bark. If he supplied it with chakra, it would allow him to stand. Following through he shifted his weight to the foot on the tree, making as though he were climbing a particularly steep stair. When his foot didn't immediately slide off, he was pleased to find that he was on the right track.
Invigorated by his discovery, Naruto confidently lifted the foot still on the ground and made to put it on the tree. However, his foot attached to the tree only held for a second before gravity reasserted itself and Naruto flailed wildly before hitting the ground with a muffled 'oomph'.
Naruto gazed upwards from where he lay, half expecting some snarky comment from his teacher. He was almost disappointed when he didn't receive even so much as a glance.
I'm probably not the first to have failed today. I suppose the novelty of seeing students fall off a tree loses its attraction after the first dozen times you've seen it in one day.
Naruto stood and brushed himself off before turning to glare at the tree once more. He wasn't going to be defeated by some leafless abjuration of agriculture. This time, he knew what he did wrong. He hadn't put in enough chakra and so he'd fallen off. He wouldn't be making that mistake again. Summoning all of his chakra and channeling it to his foot, Naruto lifted and planted it against the tree.
The effect was immediate. He was blasted from the tree, leaving a small indentation in the bark as he hurtled several feet away to land for the second time in so many minutes on his back.
"Consequences, Naruto." Kakashi said from the top of the tree, his eye not leaving the book. "The first time you didn't put enough chakra into it, now you've put in too much. You're going to have to find the proper balance to succeed. This is the great art of chakra, knowing just how much or how little to put into your technique. Force, reactions, consequences."
Kakashi reached into his pouch and pulled out a kunai, tossing it to the base of the tree with a lazy flick of the wrist.
"Use that to mark your progress like you see on the other trees."
A grumbling Naruto rose to his feet, glaring daggers at the one eyed ninja resting comfortably on top of the tree and safely out of harm's reach. He still hadn't gotten even for the soaking that morning. He hadn't forgotten nor forgiven. Walking over to the tree, he retrieved the kunai, the heavy metal fitting into his hand comfortably.
"You never said how long we're going to be at this." Naruto said, thinking back to Guy's instruction.
"Hmm?" Kakashi asked, looking down distractedly. "We're going 'til you either can't stand anymore or your next instructor gets impatient and sends a messenger to get you." He shrugged. "I have all day."
Naruto struggled to keep a straight face. He wasn't much for formal rules and the like, but this seemed a bit lax even to him. However, the one eyed ninja appeared unconcerned with his laziness. Looking up at the tree with trepidation, Naruto exhaled a pent-up breath.
This was going to hurt.
Line Break
In the end, it was the next instructor's patience that ran out first. Over the past two hours Naruto had been catching odd glances from Kakashi as he continued to try and climb the tree with single-minded determination. Now an ANBU stood on the tree beside Kakashi, black robes and white mask with animalistic markings distinguishing him as a fairly high-ranking member. A long sword was strapped to his back, the bindings were made to disconnect easily so it couldn't be grabbed onto and used against him.
"You were supposed to send him once he couldn't continue." The man said, his voice distorted by the porcelain mask.
Kakashi blinked up at the man calmly, unfazed by the stiff and well armed man standing in front of him.
"He's still going at it, see?" Kakashi responded, pointing down at where Naruto stood, squinting up at them, able to hear their discussion thanks to enhancing his ears with chakra.
"I just see a brat eavesdropping where he shouldn't." The ANBU responded coldly.
Naruto wasn't ashamed at being called out in the slightest. If the ANBU really had an issue with him listening in, he'd come down here and make something of it.
"Naruto has rather impressive stamina for his age. And, if I'm not mistaken, a very impressive healing rate. He came here favoring at least two bruised ribs and some torn muscles from his spar. Now he's hardly limping and not favoring his ribs at all."
The ANBU turned to regard Naruto, cold blue eyes boring into Naruto through the eye-slits in the mask.
"I don't envy him when you tell Ibiki about this. You know the man will want to test him to see how far it goes. The brat will not… enjoy it."
Naruto was alarmed to see Kakashi appear slightly uncomfortable with what the ANBU said.
"I hadn't planned on telling Lord Hokage's chief interrogator about it for at least another two weeks. I wanted to give the boy a chance. If Ibiki gets ahold of him this early… the kid will break before the month is out."
"Then I will win that part of the betting pool." The ANBU responded. "If you won't tell him, I will. Anyway," the ANBU disappeared and Naruto felt a hand land on his shoulder and the ANBU's voice boomed from above him, "I'll be taking the boy to his next appointment."
Naruto felt the tug of the high-speed transport and experience the blurred vision and accompanying weightlessness before his feet slammed back into the ground.
He was now standing in the middle of what appeared to be a ninja's library, lit by a fireplace recessed into the right wall. What looked like bookshelves lined each wall, except instead of books or scrolls there were small plaques with seals under them. Each plaque bore an inscription above the seal that declared what subject was contained in the seal below.
He wasn't alone in the room. What appeared to be a mummy sat in a wooden chair, white robes arranged around him carefully. His right was bound in a sling the wrapped over his shoulder, his uninjured left arm his arm was resting on his cane that stood slightly to his right. After Kakashi's lazy gaze, Naruto found the intent and direct gaze from the man almost alarming. The x-shaped scar on his chin lent the gaze a more serious, chilling quality that bespoke a hardness only gained from combat.
Naruto knew that sort of gaze. He'd seen the same look in the eyes of the gang leaders and their direct subordinates. It was the look of someone who gave orders and expected them to be obeyed, perfectly prepared and willing to mete out punishment if they weren't.
Instincts gained and honed in the slums came back to him. He straightened his back, taking extra care not to lock eyes with the man. If the mummy was anything like the men he grew up under, then crossing this man was the last thing he wanted to do.
"My name is Danzo." The mummy said, introducing himself in a low, controlled, voice that cause the hair on Naruto's neck to stand on end. He knew Danzo. Anybody who'd lived on the streets for any respectable period of time didn't know about the Hokage's ex-black ops man, Danzo. The man was as cold as they came, with a heart that made ice envious. He created soldiers without emotion or free will. Supposedly he was forced into retirement years ago.
"You've met two of your instructors in Taijutsu and Ninjutsu." Danzo continued. "They are prone to change depending on the needs of the other students. Chief Interrogator Ibiki and myself will be handling your training for tactics, interrogation and general studies. Others will handle your body; we will handle something far more useful, far more potent and dangerous than the physical. We will be honing your mind."
Danzo clicked his cane on the stone ground.
"How are you in mathematics?"
Naruto cringed and Danzo frowned.
"Liberal arts?"
"Is that a Taijutsu form?"
Danzo's frown deepened.
"Philosophy?"
"How much did the sofa cost?" Naruto asked, trying weakly to make a joke.
Danzo stared at him for a long moment, his frown so firmly affixed in place Naruto wondered if the muscles had cramped.
"I see your previous instructors did not exaggerate when they said just how much of a blank slate you are."
Danzo held out a hand and a thick book with far too many pages than Naruto was comfortable with appeared in a puff of smoke. Danzo held it out to Naruto expectantly. "We'll start with general education and move from there. You will not be leaving until well after dinner."
Naruto repressed a groan. The man hadn't taken well to his joke; it followed reason to assume he wouldn't take to complaining. With sluggish movements, Naruto accepted the book from Danzo wordlessly and sat himself against one of the bookshelves, drawing his knees up towards his chest and resting the book against them. Opening the book, he found himself faced with a never-ending scrawl of words without a picture to be found. It was a veritable monsoon of verbiage and Naruto had never been fond of reading. There was rarely a need for it in the environment he grew up in. You had to know how to work your numbers, be able to respond to basic orders, and not get into the way of the bigger kids and the taskmasters.
"The whole book?" Naruto asked, looking up.
Danzo simply looked at him without deigning the question with a response. Getting the hint, Naruto returned to the book on his lap flipped a few pages and picked a random spot and began to read.
Once the clan wars came to a close and the villages began their hasty formation, it is unsurprising how nature itself seemed to reflect the aspects found in the shinobi's abilities. In Konoha the element of fire is most prevalent even though they hold the most balance among the village that sprang up during the same time. The Sarutobi with their ash attacks quickly rose amongst the nobility to mark their name with the Hyuuga and Uchiha who helped found the village.
Naruto closed his eyes. History. The most useless of the classes he'd been forced to trudge through in the academy. What was the point in knowing what some dead person did so many years ago? How did that help put food on the table or make you stronger? He couldn't see the use in it - unless he could somehow convince his opponent to sit still and allow him to bore him to death with his vast wealth of inane facts.
He sat like that for three hours, trudging through page after page of history and theory, the author exhaustively pointing out that if Konoha might not have been able to gain the upper hand during the war if the Fourth Hokage hadn't been as powerful as he had and Konoha's strategists hadn't been as clever in troop deployment as they had been. It was a sobering read and Naruto was surprised at how frank it was. The texts he'd been forced to read back at the academy had made it seem as though victory was almost assured throughout the war, that the Fourth Hokage had been the lynchpin in the machine.
"Why do you fight for Konoha?" Danzo suddenly asked, breaking the silence.
Naruto blinked in bewilderment over the top of his book, looking at the solemn war veteran.
"What do you mean?" He eventually asked. Was this some sort of trick to twist his words from the other day and implicate himself as a traitor? He wasn't, and he was growing tired of trying to prove himself loyal.
"Because Konoha is my home."
Danzo continued to look at him levelly, hardly even blinking. A response that made Naruto's own eyes want to water in sympathy. He clearly didn't believe Naruto's answer.
"Home." Danzo repeated the word slowly, as if turning it over and examining it in his mind. "And what is home?"
"Why are you asking me?" Naruto asked, a bit of his annoyance with both the reading and the questioning creeping into his voice.
"I am asking you because you need to starting thinking, boy." Danzo said aggressively in his controlled and raspy tone. "You need to start looking at the bigger picture of things. Now, what is home?"
"Home is where you sleep at night." Naruto said, then hesitated and repeated what he'd seen a man on the streets say to his child while he crouched in the gutter. "Home is where you're accepted and loved." He said slightly despondently.
"So that is "Home", then?" Danzo asked.
Naruto nodded, though he had a distinct feeling that the conversation wasn't going his way at all.
"Why would you fight for a place that never wanted you?" Danzo asked, each word striking Naruto like a thunderbolt.
"Lord Danzo." An ANBU said in a threatening tone, appearing in a burst of motion and leaves next to the aged mummy's shoulder. "You are coming dangerously clo-"
"I am aware of what I am doing." Danzo said, cutting off the ANBU. "My agreement with Sarutobi to teach these children allows me certain privileges. I know exactly what I may and may not say. Leave us."
The ANBU hesitated briefly, looking as if he wanted to argue but had thought better of it. He nodded and formed a hand seal, vanished just as he'd come.
Naruto hadn't really registered their exchange, his mind running through his life once more. The mean looks, the blows, all the actions the citizenry of Konoha took against him for whatever reason they all seemed to accept and know. A reason that was completely unfathomable to him. A reason Ibiki, and now this man, had hinted at.
"Tell me." Danzo pressed, looking at Naruto again. "Why do you want to fight for a village that hates you as much as they do?"
Naruto wanted him to stop. He didn't like thinking about it. Everything would get better when he became strong enough to be a ninja. They wouldn't hate him for who he was. Had his parents done something bad? Were they traitors? Is that why everyone assume he would be as well? It certainly would explain a lot. That had to be it. At least if it was them, it would absolve him of responsibility.
"I'm a patriot." Naruto moaned, curling up and gripping his head, the book that had been on his lap clattering to the floor. The strain of the last two days had been getting too him. He was only thirteen and so much had been happening. He wasn't a traitor. He wasn't his parents.
"A patriot?" Danzo parroted, derision filling his voice." Why wouldn't the man stop? What had Naruto done to him? "A patriot is someone who dies for the ideal of a plot of dirt and an idea. Stand straight, boy. Look me in the eye and tell me what you fight for, if not for your country and future generations as the other ninja do?"
Naruto unclenched his muscles so that he lay flat against the floor and stared blankly at the cruel instructor. Anger boiled and suffused every cell of Naruto's body so that he felt as though he were on fire. He wanted to scream, to yell, to make someone understand that he just wanted a normal life. Of course he didn't care for patriotism. Future generations? A possibility? Naruto failed to see the point in either of those things. They were an intangible ideal and didn't fill the belly at night, nor did they keep you warm during the winter.
"I fight so that when the chips are down -when the blood hits the fan and everything falls apart, I'll be the one standing. Everyone and everything I hold dear will be protected. The Ichiraku's, Iruka, and old man Hokage will be safe. And if they value other people, I'll save them too. No one deserves to live alone."
Danzo leaned back in his chair. His eyes however, never left Naruto own. He gazed at Naruto for a stretch before asking, "What can one boy do?"
Naruto shrugged. "Whatever I can."
Danzo smiled a twisted, lopsided smile, his gnarled lips seemingly unused to the motion and said, "You can start by becoming the becoming stronger than the others." He pointed at the book still lying beside Naruto. "And learning everything you can. Power lies in knowledge and secrets. If you know what the opponent is going to do before they do, you'll have the upper hand."
Naruto looked at the book. The man's logic made sense, but…books. They were what rich people quoted and read from to fancy up their words and honey talk people like him into doing what they wanted.
If you can't beat them, join them. Naruto thought, sitting up and reaching for the book.
Line Break
It was a physically and mentally exhausted Naruto that slid into one of the many long tables that had been set up in the main cavern where he'd sparred earlier that day. Sasuke and Sakura were already mostly finished with their meals, a sizable serving of steak and potatoes with broccoli and corn. Naruto dropped his tray of food on the table with a loud clatter, getting an annoyed look from Sakura and a sideways glance from Sasuke.
Bastard's probably deaf. Naruto thought scathingly.
His mood had not improved, even after resolving to endure reading. Although his attitude had shifted slightly, the words were still as difficult to decipher as they'd previously been.
Naruto pulled out his utensils and dug into his meal. The ration bar was as disgusting as it was filling, but nothing could compare to a full-blown meal. It was no ramen, but with how hungry he was it didn't matter.
They continued to eat in silence, which rather surprised him. Not once had Sakura directly spoken to Sasuke. In fact, now that he looked at her, she looked like she'd been on the wrong side of a stampede. Her hair was a mess of knots and snares, thin cuts were scattered across her arms like she'd recently ran through a thick nest of brambles, or challenged a stack of needles to a duel and lost.
"What happened to you?" Naruto inquired, sticking a mouthful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
Sakura gave him a disgusted look before answering, "She lied."
Naruto gave her a blank look at the cryptic response.
"I don't follow."
"The interviewer… snake woman. She lied. She said I wouldn't ever see her again. She lied."
Naruto raised an eyebrow at the hostile way she answered, not that he could blame her. His own experience with the instructors thus far had been a carried from painful, to annoying, to painfully educational. But Sakura, her eyes were unfocused as she stared at her half-finished plate of food. Normally, she would have been horrified at her unkempt appearance in front of Sasuke, preferring not to be seen at all rather than be seen dirtied. Her day must have been just as unforgiving as his own.
Naruto leaned over to Sasuke, "Has she been like this the entire time?" he asked.
Sasuke only grunted as he diligently worked on cutting his steak, pale hands expertly manipulating the knife and fork with all the dignified grace of a well trained noble. It made Naruto want to upturn the plate on the pretty boy's face.
Retraining himself and running Sasuke's grunt through a quick mental translator, Naruto nodded in the affirmative, understand that Sasuke meant 'yes'. It was a talent Naruto was not proud of, though, on occasions like now, it had its uses.
"Why were you late to dinner?" Sasuke asked between bites, somehow using only the tone of his voice to make Naruto feel like he'd been the one in the wrong and should apologize.
Its his damned rich upbringing. Naruto thought. If he'd been born where I had, there's no way he would speak like that. Or maybe he would. He'd fit right in with Korin and his crew of pompous assholes.
"Danzo." Naruto growled by way of explanation.
"I haven't met this Danzo." Sasuke replied dismissively. "I've only been trained by Jōnin Kakashi, Chief Interrogator Ibiki, Jōnin Sarutobi Asuma, Jōnin Kurenai, and special Jōnin Ebisu."
Naruto goggled. Five trainers? He'd only had three. Was Sasuke really that much better than he was?
"Hmph, bet they traded you off so fast because they couldn't stand your stuck up attitude." Naruto jeered.
Sasuke ignored him, opting place the last cut of steak into his mouth, chew, and then wipe his mouth with his napkin and stand to his feet.
"Jōnin Kakashi ordered me to tell you that after dinner we have on hour's free time before we are expected to be in our rooms."
Then, without so much as a posh 'good evening', Sasuke turned and headed towards their room, disappearing from sight.
"What an ass." Naruto commented, looking after where the raven-haired ninja had retreated.
"Don't talk about Sasuke like that." Sakura said, though her heart wasn't quite in the rebuke as it usually was.
"Mr'll trph abrf 'strd hrhfer," Naruto swallowed his mouthful of food, "I want." He finished.
Sakura tossed him another disgusted look before standing and walking off with a muttered 'pig' under her breath.
Naruto smiled to himself as she left. He knew that would get rid of her. His uncultured upbringing did have some uses. Now he could finish his meal in peace with the table all to himself.
"That was not wise, Uzumaki." Came Ibiki's gruff tones from behind him.
Naruto didn't turn his attention away from his meal as the large man dropped into the seat beside him, black trench coat splaying around him like a tainted pool.
"Mr nrf care." Naruto said through his food, looking with a sidelong glance at the man, hoping he would become frustrated like Sakura had and leave him alone to eat in peace. He'd had enough of teachers for one day.
"That won't work on me, Uzumaki." Ibiki said, shattering Naruto's hopes with a cold indifference.
Naruto swallowed, staring glumly at the interrogator.
"Why would you care?" Naruto asked.
Ibiki looked at him for long time, holding Naruto's gaze with a flat, uncompromisable strength.
"I care because you eleven, as sad as it is at present, are Konoha's future." He said at last.
Naruto had nothing to say to that. He couldn't quite comprehend that Konoha would depend on him for anything. Sure, the Hokage said that they were looking to train the next Sannin, and the training he'd received today had been like nothing he'd received before, but why would they care about his relationships with suck-up snobs boys like Sasuke and Sakura.
"I'll give you a bit of advice, and a story I remember my father telling me when I was a lad." Ibiki continued. "First the advice: Wasting energy acting like a and driving who would have, if the Hokage hadn't decided to start this little venture of his, been your teammates."
My teammates? Them?
"What are you walking about?" Naruto demanded. "He's the stuck up rich kid. He-"
Ibiki glowered at him and Naruto fell silent.
"What is snobbery other than feeling entitled to respect simply because you grew up poor, instead of rich, turned on its' head?"
"I'm not stuck up." Naruto shot back.
"Refusing to associate with someone because they're a bit different than you? That sounds pretty stuck up to me." Ibiki commented. "But that's my advice. Take it or leave it, it's up to you."
Naruto sat under Ibiki's stern scowl turning over the uncomfortable possibility that he was a lot more like the bastard than he wanted to admit. The thought wasn't a pleasant one.
"The story?" Naruto asked, wanting to distract himself from his own introspection.
Ibiki grunted, shifting on the seat to make him more comfortable. Naruto did the same.
"Years ago a gambler and a monk embarked on a long trek right through the great lands of the North." Ibiki began. "They had a debate about God, chance and fate, and agreed that they'd settle it through just one card game." Ibiki held up a single calloused finger. "Days passed into weeks which turned into months and travelers came in just to watch them play, and bet on which one would eventually win. As a town was built around them the gambler's pot rose and the Monk's pot fell." Ibiki smiled a lopsided smile, scar at his lip twisting with the motion. "At last the final hand came, but before it was played the Gambler's heart gave out. He hollered and cried out before he died, cursing from his lungs: the game was not done. He swore they'd be back to finish. And with his first to the sky the gambler died."
Ibiki nodded to himself once and reached into the inside of his coat, withdrawing a flask and raised it to his lips, taking a long swig before returning it to where he'd withdrawn it from.
"That's it?" Naruto asked.
"The end." Ibiki confirmed, nodding again.
"The story wasn't finished." Naruto protested, frowning.
"Neither was their card game." Ibiki responded glibly, standing up and looking down at Naruto who he towered over. Naruto blinked, the man seemed to block out the light from above.
"Think about it, Uzumaki." Ibiki said and then left, leaving Naruto alone with his thoughts.
Line Break
It was several hours after his encounter with Ibiki and Naruto was now lying on his bed, hands laced behind his bed, eyes glazed as he stared into the dark room. It was lights out and the power had been cut. They were expected to remain in the room, resting for the next day like cattle. Naruto might have been slightly offended at the lack of freedom – even though he'd been told this was going to happen – if his mind wasn't so full of what Ibiki and Danzo had said to him. They were connected, of that he was sure. He just had no blasted idea how.
Danzo's words had shaken him greatly, though he had put up a strong front before the Uchiha and Sakura. Perhaps he'd been too abrupt with them, as Ibiki had said, but you couldn't afford to show weakness in front of people you didn't trust. That got you killed on the streets. You did what you had to on the streets to survive. Stabbing someone in the back to get what he or she had? Commonplace. And so he'd pushed them even further away. But maybe there was another way. A small part of Naruto, a part he thought he'd buried a long time ago, screamed at him to extend the hand of friendship and do his best to get along with them. After all, they would have been his teammates had fate not decided otherwise. Maybe it was worth a try.
Naruto turned over on his cot to face where the other two would be laying. The soft, rhythmic sounds of their breathing told him that they were already asleep. Waking them would hardly put them in the best of temperaments and so he decided that he'd try tomorrow evening during dinner to mend a few of the hundreds of bridges he'd burned over the years he'd known them.
A home. Naruto hadn't really thought about that concept for quite some time, not since he'd given up on the possibility of him ever having one years ago. But Danzo had hinted that he could find one amongst the other students and teachers here.
No. Naruto thought as he frowned. Danzo hadn't actually said anything like that. He'd said that he'd have to become stronger than them to achieve power. Secrets. That's what the mummified instructor had told him, secrets had power. Did that mean he had to hide his power from the others? But then, what power did he have that others didn't?
Naruto grit his teeth in frustration. He'd had enough of secrets. His entire life was one big never-ending riddle. At first he'd grabbed onto the possibility of his parents being traitors, certainly it would explain the mistrust they had for him. It didn't, however, explain their continued hatred of him. If his parents were traitors then it didn't explain why people weren't allowed to talk about it. Konoha wasn't a pit full of fools who meted out judgment on a whim; neither did they casually transfer hatred from one generation to the next without declaring why. He'd seen other kids rise from the gutters, why would he be the exception?
A thought suddenly occurred to him, a thought that shattered his traitorous parent theory. If they were turncoats, then mistreating the son was certainly a recipe for disaster. That meant that whatever they hated him for was on account of something that he had control over. Whatever had enraged them so much was even larger than he'd imagined.
"And what could I have done when I was so young I can't even remember it?" Naruto asked of the darkness.
He shook his head. He didn't have enough information at present. The older generation obviously knew something that the younger generation hadn't been clued in on. They simply parroted their parents. Ibiki had all but told him that. So he just had to go far enough into the past to draw the lines.
Naruto had to repress a chuckle as he realized the irony of that thought. The past, history, his least favorite subject was suddenly relevant, just as Danzo had said it would be. Maybe there was a point in studying the past.
He closed his eyes, trying to settle his mind. He'd come into a resolution. He was going to become stronger, and in doing so he was going to surpass every one of his peers and prove himself. To gain that strength he'd need friends. A lot of them were of noble clans that he saw - they had to know a few secrets. Secrets he needed.
Naruto found himself faced with a decision. Either mix with the type of people he hated, or go on in ignorance.
Naruto turned over into his bed. Who knew? He might even enjoy their company. Right up until the moment he plunged his knives into their hearts.
End of Chapter Two