Alright so, first off: Thank you for everyone who read the story thus far and enjoyed it at least somewhat. I'm always glad to receive reviews ('cause of my constant need to be an attention whore) and find advice and support for the story. It also inspired me to get chapter two done as soon as possible.
Originally I had an entire chapter which made itself into 16k words (no I'm serious) but I decided to cut it in half into two separate chapters for the sake of my readers' eyes and minds.
And on with the story:
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Chapter 2
It had only taken one more week for the construction to finally come to a finish and for the bridge to finally be completed. After one more town-wide celebration he and his team had left for Konoha. The journey was a lot shorter this time around, what with them not having the civilian Tazuna to slow them down.
It was also a lot more awkward this time around too.
Before, around eighty percent of the noise made could have been attributed to him and Sakura. However, he didn't really feel much like talking this time around. He credited that to Dark Naruto's quiet resentment of pretty much every person that they ever knew, ever. After combining he had found himself thinking in ways that he never had before. Every time Sakura asked out Sasuke around him he felt the familiar twinge of jealousy that always proceeded it, though accompanied by a flare of resentment for both the Uchiha and his crush.
He desperately wanted him to be the one to be asked by her. It was never going to happen though.
He could acknowledge that.
So he had avoided speaking to her in general, opting instead to only speak when spoken to.
Sakura seemed to recognize this after her attempts to create a conversation with the other, darker-haired male of their team. It was usually at this point that he would jump into the conversation and start talking to her, at which point she would annoyingly and begrudgingly talk back. Not before telling him off of course. When he didn't do it this time, however, she seemed to look a little lost at the lack of attention she was receiving.
She quieted down herself and fell into pace with the rest of her silent team.
Sasuke, on the other hand, didn't seem to be acting that differently at all. If the dark-haired boy noticed his teammate's little change in his behaviour than he seemed to not even care and kept his attention to his own thoughts, ignoring both of his teammates and his sensei.
Kakashi was as quiet as he usually got, having granted the entirety of his attention to his little book.
And that was the routine that they followed until they finally reached Konoha.
"Why don't you guys go home?" Kakashi suggested to his team. He had to go report to the Hokage on the mission and didn't really fancy having his genin follow him around all day.
It was then that they were each brought out of their own worlds, realizing that they were in Konoha at least. With varying reactions, the three genin bid their sensei adieu and set off to do whatever they were going to do. Kakashi acknowledged their goodbyes and quickly took himself to the Hokage's office.
He was let in without a hassle as the Third had nobody with him at the moment.
"Welcome back, Kakashi." The man greeted evenly. "I trust your mission went well?"
How to respond to this...
"We met with some troubles along the way that turned our C-Rank into a B-Rank at the very least." He figured that being blunt was the best way to go about doing this.
To his credit, the Third Hokage kept his face impassive. Though he had probably heard worse.
So he went on.
"We were attacked by the Demon Brother missing-nin pair from the mist, a girl who was probably strong enough to be at least a chunnin and A-class missing-nin, Momochi Zabuza, formerly of the Hidden Mist."
"How are your team?" The Sandaime's voice was crisp and gritty. It was no real surprise; happenings like this weren't too often a situation for a genin team fresh out of the academy.
"Sasuke is fine. In the final battle he received minimal wounds, and though at the moment they seemed fatal, he was up and walking by the next day. His performance during the mission was nothing short of spectacular. From the first battle with the Demon Brothers he was immediately on task and focused, fending them off with only a good amount of difficulty. I have a good amount of hope for him and his future."
He was proud of him. The boy had done a good job and had even (thankfully) almost given up his life to save Naruto. He could see the Third had recognized the tone, if the other man's returned smile was anything to go by.
His tone grew harder as he went on, however.
"Sakura however, is a completely different story. Though I don't really expect as much from her, I really doubt her reasons for becoming a ninja. She seems to mostly be playing along just so she can be with Sasuke. Still, she tried her best to help by constantly guarding Tazuna, though I wonder what she would have done if the enemies had gotten past myself, Sasuke and Naruto."
"Will she need to be replaced?"
"I'll give her some more time. I think it would do more harm than good to remove her at this point, considering that we've just started to get pull the team together. I will talk to her though."
Yes, he definitely would.
"And Naruto?" Ah yes. This was what the Sandaime had been most anxious to speak about.
"Naruto started off the mission a little shakily. He fell into a bit of shock during the first attack from the Demon Brothers but afterwards fought tooth and nail to keep himself and his teammates alive. There was a little problem at the bridge, however." He paused, thinking of the best way to ease into the following conversation.
"It was the Kyuubi." He chose bluntness again. The Hokage's face tensed.
"Twice during the battle he used the Kyuubi's chakra. I asked him about it afterwards and he told me that he could communicate with it and ask for its help. Its condition was to kill every single one of them."
Sarutobi grimaced. "Do we have reason to suspect the seal is breaking down?"
"I doubt it, but it doesn't hurt to be careful. Perhaps we should get it checked by a seal master?"
He received a nod in response and a combination of words which put him at least partly to ease.
"I'll call for Jiraiya immediately."
Naruto blinked several times after he woke up.
The first blink told him it was morning, if the blindingly bright rays of light were anything to go by. The second told him he was in his bedroom and, thankfully, not in the sewer-y depths of his mind which held the Kyuubi. The third told him that it was 12:05.
The fourth told him that he was late.
Jumping off his bed, he rushed to his feet and tossed on his clothes. Breakfast and bathing were both considered inconsequential at this point and ignored as he ran out the door of his apartment, and (hopefully) locking it in his haste. He hurriedly sprinted through the streets of Konoha, ignoring the stares he was getting from passersby. He was fairly used to them by now. It took him less than ten minutes to make it to his destination. That was impressive, in his opinion.
He was still late though. That was an unchangeable fact.
"You're late!" A fact that Sakura didn't hesitate to inform him of.
He looked just beyond her to see Sasuke and even, God forbid, Kakashi looking at him curiously.
"Sorry." He mumbled underneath his pink-haired teammate's rants and shouts. He didn't like it when she got mad at him.
"What held you up, Naruto?" Kakashi asked curiously after Sakura had finally stopped her barrage of words.
"I overslept." That was lame actually. He should've made an elaborate and unbelievable excuse like Kakashi always did. It would've been a bit more amusing, he supposed.
"Don't let it happen again." The jounin said lazily and, in Naruto's opinion, a good bit hypocritically.
It had been exactly four days since they had gotten back from the Wave mission and they had formed a different routine. Every day they would all get together at the time that Kakashi had told them to come at and wait for him to arrive. This wasn't much different from what they had done earlier, except for the fact that nobody talked to anybody. Unless it was Sakura to Sasuke, which he watched with silent jealousy.
When Kakashi arrived they would train together, as opposed to the onslaught of D-Rank missions they did before the mission at Wave. Kakashi had told them they would be getting the pay of an A-Rank for that mission so there was no real reason to do any more D-Ranks for a while. This was something that none of the three genin complained to.
"We're going to be sparring today." Their silver-haired sensei said to them. It was a change from the large amounts of solitary exercise he had put them through lately.
"Naruto and Sasuke. Taijutsu only. No sharingan. Winner fights Sakura." Sakura looked to be at cross on who to cheer for at that. She wanted Sasuke to win, but she didn't want to fight Sasuke obviously. Sasuke simply looked annoyed at the no sharingan rule. He, himself, looked more than eager to start the fight.
So he and Sasuke each took a position a fair bit away from each other.
"Ready. Go!" At the jounin's declaration they both moved.
He was slower than Sasuke so he was at a disadvantage. The Uchiha moved gracefully and fluidly, ensuring that each hit he made was followed by another in a seemingly perfect sequence of strikes guaranteed to succeed.
He moved like a wild animal, swiping and striking at whatever he could reach. There was no grace or movement considered, really. He just wanted to kick Sasuke's ass. Very badly.
Although that was quickly becoming a task in itself as the Uchiha simply refused to stay still. Whenever he made a strike the Uchiha would, with seemingly relative ease, dodge around it and strike back with one that he himself found a good amount of difficulty to do the same to. The battle had quickly becoming one-sided and he found that his lifeline was depending on when he got too tired to dodge further or made a sloppy mistake.
Unfortunately, what could have went wrong did and he found himself on the floor after a well-placed sweeping kick at his legs knocked him over and left Sasuke towering over him, looking victorious.
Before he could follow through with a kick to wipe the Uchiha's smirk off Kakashi had declared the match finished.
"I'm not finished yet!" He growled at the jounin, who simply stared back lazily and shrugged.
"Sasuke-kun, are you injured? I have some ointment I brought for bruises." Naruto suddenly felt a familiar flare of resentment to the Uchiha (and Sakura as well, he supposed) as Sakura coddled around the dark-haired boy. He really, really wanted to break his face in, regardless of whether or not the asshole saved his life earlier.
Tearing his jealous glares away from the two, he walked over to his sensei.
"I could've won that."
"I'm sure you don't believe that."
What was that?
The jounin sighed and looked him straight in the eye. "Sasuke is superior to you in terms of taijutsu. He's been training nearly his entire life in the ninja arts, he's had private tutors, and he's worked hard to get the level of skill he has today. You don't expect to just beat him like that, do you?"
Goddamn private tutors. Why'd Sasuke get all the breaks?
A wonderful idea hit him.
"Kakashi-sensei," he said, hoping to God that he would receive a yes in response, "Can I-Would you teach me taijutsu?"
The jounin looked at him peculiarly at that. So he went on.
"Sasuke's had tutors his entire life to help with that stuff. I, on the other hand, didn't really get jack shit from anyone and far as I was concerned, I didn't really want anything. I'm asking for help now though." I really want to kick his ass, he wanted to add.
"Sasuke's going to get jealous if I start exclusive training with you. Sakura's going to feel left out as well. I really don't want to make trouble for myself."
It's always about Sasuke, he heard a part of him say bitterly.
"But since you did go through the trouble of asking me and are actively seeking methods to improve yourself, I suppose I can arrange something."
He could not have been more pleasantly surprised by those words.
Kakashi continued. "I have a friend who can help you. He's a powerful fighter and even better than me at taijutsu. If you want I can arrange for you to meet up with him after our regular group training sessions."
Better than Kakashi? Sasuke was getting his ass kicked for sure now.
"I have to warn you though...He's a bit of an oddity. His name is..."
"Maito Gai! The Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha." The green-clad, bushy eyebrowed man gave him a smile as white as paper and struck some sort of a pose, involving a thumbs-up hand sign.
Naruto was a bit surprised that this man was supposed to be stronger than Kakashi at taijutsu.
The man was a bit of an eccentric. Scratch that. The man was a lot of an eccentric.
"Gai-sensei!" A boy, dressed in a similar green jumpsuit to Gai, shouted. The boy was a member of the three man team that guy lead.
"Lee!" His name was Lee.
Naruto turned his gaze to the other two members.
Tenten seemed to be a competent kunoichi, if the kunai she kept tossing and playing around with said anything. Neji was the team's very own Sasuke. Although he seemed to be even more contemptuous and self-righteous. If that was possible. However he had to put up with it. Kakashi had arranged for him to meet up with them after group training was done and judging by the consequences he had mentioned for him if he quit really quick, the jounin had sacrificed something of a good amount of value to do so.
"Naruto, my rival's youthful student!" He immediately gave Gai his full attention. "You will be training with specifically myself and Lee in the youthful art of taijutsu!"
Naruto nodded, attempting to look enthusiastic.
How bad could it be?
Evidently terrible, if the large number of bruises Lee had given him had anything to say about it.
The spandex-wearing boy evidently did not know how to hold back. That was for certain. Of course, it was at least partly his fault considering the taijutsu style had chosen.
"I am adept with many different forms of taijutsu." Gai had said seriously to him. The first few serious words he had heard from him since meeting him. "There are many to learn from and I must first know, how do you wish to fight?"
How did he...?
Was he trying to ask which style he wanted to learn?
"I'd like to learn your style, I guess."
Gai gave him a hard stare.
"The strong fist," he said, with no small amount of seriousness, "Is a form that is meant to destroy the body of the enemy and break bones. It must be used by physically powerful shinobi with high endurance and stamina." Break bones? Oh God yes.
"I want to learn it." He made sure to make his voice seem as determined as possible.
Gai gave him a wide smile. "Alright! Uzumaki Naruto, you are hereby from this point on: my new protégé!"
So long as he didn't have to wear a jumpsuit he was more than happy with those words.
At least, those were his thoughts before he was pitted up against Lee, who had become his 'training partner'. Honestly, in his opinion, the pair just liked tossing people around.
"You okay there, new guy?"
He turned to see Tenten setting herself down beside him in interest. She was nice. The only one in Team Gai that didn't look down on him or beat him to a bloody pulp.
"Yeah." He sighed. "Though I don't know if I'll be able to say that by the end of the week, what with training with the Sadist Duo."
She laughed at that. That was nice. He made a girl laugh. This was all going very smoothly.
"You'll get used to it. They're ridiculous and they work themselves, and everyone around them, to death but they're really pretty likeable."
"When I see the likeable side I'll let you know." She grinned and leaned in.
"So why're you here, new guy?" Evidently she liked to gossip. Though this really wasn't that big of a secret.
"Training."
She looked a little ticked at his answer.
"You've got your own sensei." And she could get snarky too.
"He can't deliver, so he set me up with someone who could."
"There's no real point." We both turned our heads to the direction of the new voice.
"One can't hope to go against his destiny. Being weak is something fate won't let you change." Oh wow. That Neji guy was really asking for an ass-kicking.
Unfortunately it would've been bad behaviour to assault one of Gai's students.
"We'll see about that." So he settled for a really lame comeback instead.
The other boy gave him a superior sneer and walked off.
Naruto looked at Tenten pointedly.
"Uhh. No, he's not always like that." She mumbled, as if sensing his question.
He'd just avoid him then.
The next two months passed with the new addition of training with Team Gai to his routine. It was useful of course. He knew that he was getting better and better with his taijutsu. He based that on the fact that he was making it more and more increasingly difficult for Sasuke to defeat him during their taijutsu-only spars. Several times he had come very close to winning and in their most recent spar he had tied with the Uchiha.
It wasn't the face-breaking he had originally wanted to give his rival, but he was coming close.
Additionally he was finding himself more and more comfortable with Team Gai (excluding Neji). He found Lee and Gai much more approachable than his own team. He had given them a clean slate when he had met them and so far they had kept it clean. Tenten, especially, he found himself able to be around easily. She in return had been fairly glad for the new company, having only had the over-active Lee and the arrogant Neji to speak to.
He had made new friends. His training was going along splendidly. The Kyuubi hadn't talked to him in months. He had found himself a whole lot less dark and cynical.
Team Gai was the best thing to happen to him for months.
The only thing that could've made his life a little better would've been if they'd get an actual mission instead of this returning onslaught of D-Ranks.
In a way it was practically asking for trouble, but he decided to voice his thoughts the next time his team met with the Hokage.
"Naruto, are you serious?" Iruka had all but shouted the question at them and suddenly he felt a sense of déjà vu.
"It's just that we've been doing D-Ranks for a month!" He said defensively. "I mean, if we can handle a mission good enough to be an A-Rank, then I'm sure we deserve our first actual C-Rank."
Iruka once again looked like he was going to protest further but the Third cut him off.
"If that's what you wish. I think we have the mission for you, Naruto."
He was pretty sure the surprise that had overtaken his face was mirrored by his team.
"It's a delivery mission of sorts. You will take medicine to a village located a good distance north from here. This will be a joint mission and another genin team will be accompanying you on this. Do you accept this mission?" The last part was directed towards Kakashi who, noticing the pointed stares of his two male students, sighed.
"I suppose we do, Hokage-sama."
Hinata looked carefully over her belongings for what had to be the hundredth time.
Or maybe two hundredth. She really wasn't counting anyways.
She had to be prepared and ready though. It was her team's second C-Rank mission and she really didn't want to be an inconvenience. During the last C-Rank Shino had done most of the work and Kiba had helped greatly as well. She herself had contributed as well, but she felt it to be so insignificant compared to her allies' accomplishments. Hinata had promised herself that she wouldn't be dead weight this time around.
Plus Naruto-kun would be there. She really didn't want to look weak in front of him.
Her heart gave one of those cliché flutters that one would read about in a romance novel at her crush's name. She really liked him.
So she'd rather not look like a weakling in front of him.
With that though in mind, she rushed out of her house, opting not so say goodbye to her father and sister. She had said it less than an hour ago so there was no point in repeating herself.
When she reached the Hokage's Tower, their meeting place of choice, both Shino and Kurenai-sensei were there. She greeted them both and both gave their own greetings back. Kiba arrived not too long after her and soon enough the entire team was there.
All that was left was Team 7 to arrive.
Sakura was the first from the other team. She greeted them all evenly and fell silently into waiting for her teammates. Then Sasuke came, who didn't bother to greet anybody and instead stood silently against a wall, ignoring Sakura's attempts to make conversation. Then they waited for the other two members of Team Seven.
They waited for a whole hour. Then two.
Then Naruto arrived. His normally messy blond hair had a slightly wet and subdued look to it, indicating that he had just showered minutes before. His signature orange jacket, which she had remembered he didn't go a day without in the academy, was gone and instead he wore a black t shirt coupled with his usual orange pants. His pack was slung behind him in a messy fashion. It was easy to tell he had made it in haste. Despite his messy appearance, she couldn't help but swoon a bit at the sight of him.
She desperately hoped that went missed by everyone else.
Upon reaching the meeting place, Naruto looked around each of the faces curiously before giving them a sort of twisted grin.
"I knew you guys wouldn't leave without me."
Sakura looked like she was about to say something but Kiba had beat her to it.
"You asshole! Don't waste our time by coming late!" Kiba was really looking forward to the mission. He hadn't stopped talking about it ever since he had gotten it.
She really wished he wouldn't call her Naruto-kun names though.
"I overslept. Big deal. It happens." The other boy replied lazily in a way that was very much unlike him.
"That is not a good habit for a shinobi." Kurenai-sensei told him with a frown.
He looked at her curiously, most likely because it was the first time he had seen her.
"Sorry, I guess." He offered to her. Kurenai only continued to frown.
"What's the deal with you, Naruto?" Her Inuzuka teammate asked with a confused expression on his face. "You're not acting like your usual self."
Kiba had a point. Naruto-kun wasn't acting like himself.
Naruto blinked in response.
"Sorry," he said finally, "I've been a bit out of it lately, I guess." Nobody pressed him for details.
She wanted to of course. But she was much too timid.
A fact that she silently cursed herself for.
She was given a perfect opportunity to, at the very least, speak to him. But she couldn't.
Something held her tongue for some reason. Most likely her shy attitude.
Naruto fell into pace with everybody else's silent formation as they waited for the final member of Team Seven to arrive. The man, Kakashi as Kurenai had told them, arrived a good half an hour later.
"You're late." Kurenai told him flatly. "You promised me you wouldn't be."
"See I have a really good reason though this ti-"
"Save it." She sighed. "Let's get moving."
Kurenai was mumbling something about sensei's influencing students as they traveled up to the Hokage's office. When they reached inside the office the first thing that they all noticed was the stack of fairly large boxes sitting off to the side. They looked small enough for one person to carry though, albeit with a good amount of difficulty. There were five in total.
"These are the packages containing the medicine. I'd like you all to be fairly careful with these. They won't break so easily but it doesn't hurt to be careful right?" He looked over specifically at Naruto.
The blond noticed this and glared back at the Third.
He muttered something about proved untrusting old geezers wrong before putting his hands together in odd sort of shape. A hand-seal evidently, based on the chakra that seemed to weave around him as he did so. Seconds later, five more Narutos stood beside him. Each with gave the Hokage a pointed glare and walked up to pick up a box.
Her entire team was surprised to see that the clones were corporeal and were actually able to pick up the boxes. It was amazing to see such a technique yet she felt it was very appropriate that Naruto be the one to know it.
Kurenai –sensei looked especially surprised and gave Kakashi a questioning look, to which he only shrugged. His team evidently were unsurprised by this development so it didn't seem like it was something new. The Sandaime told them that the caravan was waiting at the main gate for them so they headed out in that direction.
The caravan they saw was fairly small for a caravan but big enough to fit the medicine boxes well.
It was also big enough for two people to push by themselves, a job that nobody really wanted to do as excuses were made left and right.
"Naruto. Naruto should do it!" Kiba finally declared, and for once the majority agreed.
"The hell? I'm the most useful one for when an enemy attacks! If anything, you should do it, dog boy!" The two glared at each other.
"Naruto, you were late. From what I heard." That had to have been the excessive scolding that Kurenai was giving him for his and Naruto's behaviour on the way to the gate.
"...Are you fucking with me?" Naruto gaped at his sensei. She too understood the hypocrisy of the jounin's words.
"Nope." The silver—haired man's tone was cheerful and non-negotiable.
"Fine. My Kage Bunshins will do it."
"Whoa there, Naruto. We don't want any sort of chakra exhaustion on your part. We'll just pair you up with someone else." Naruto shrugged, evidently not minding if someone else suffered with him.
The previous argument had restarted at this point. Everybody was trying to push the job on everybody else. At that point she got an idea.
"I-I'll do it." She offered. Everyone turned their gazes in surprise to look at her.
"I mean if nobody else will, then I can. We really should get going." She said hastily, her cheeks burning a bit. She really hoped that would be a good enough of a save.
"Hinata that's a very kind and selfless offer," Kurenai-sensei said with a smile, "But it would be more useful to have you ready and able to use your byakugan to scout around when we need it." She paused and looked to her team. "Shino will do it."
And that was the end of that.
Naruto was really finding this mission to be a bigger pain in the ass than the D-Ranks. At the very least would be finished within perhaps an hour or two at max. This however was most likely going to take a week, perhaps two (he didn't really care to inquire). They'd reach the village before the end of the day though, most likely. It wasn't that far out, if he had been looking at the map correctly at least.
He turned his attention to the boy pushing briskly with him. The caravan was heavy he supposed but all the training he did with Gai was really helping. He decided that he would thank the spandex-wearing jounin next time he saw him.
If he didn't die of boredom before that.
Honestly, could the mission really get any more boring?
No attacks. No action. No new people.
He really wasn't that fond of this mission.
But he made sure not to voice his protests, instead opting to silently fume.
And that was how he had spent the voyage to the Kohaku village. It was long and boring, and Naruto found himself constantly wishing for some missing-nin to attack, but they had made it before the day ended. His prediction was accurate at the very least.
When they had arrived at the village gate they were all greeted by a man, who introduced himself as Kimura Teuchi, the village's head doctor.
"I'm glad that you all have arrived safely. We've been waiting so long for this and we cannot thank you enough." He bowed his head very low. The man had absolutely ecstatic when they had arrived. His eyes had lit up so bright that Naruto thought he probably could've used them as flashlights.
Which would've been kinda cool, now that he thought about it.
"Thank you. We hope to make ourselves as useful as we can." He heard Kurenai say. She was a pretty responsible and dependable jounin sensei. He had always assumed that all the other jounins would be like Kakashi, but apparently he was wrong.
Teuchi thanked them four more times before leading them off to the hospital, caravan in tow. The town streets were large enough for them to pull the mobile storage room with ease.
The town itself however was remarkably...depressing.
It almost exactly mirrored Wave, when he thought about it. The streets were fairly empty, with very few passersby, all of whom looked to them suspiciously. Many shops looked to be long-since abandoned, some even slightly torn down. Sometimes when they passed by some houses, he could see people looked out in a similar suspicious fashion to the people that passed them in the streets.
Had the people in this village never seen ninja before?
He decided to voice his question to Teuchi, who looked a bit flustered at first but answered after thinking on it for a bit.
"A...A little while ago, this town was attacked by some shinobi. Most likely missing-nin from your village." He put on a grim expression before going on. "They were brutal. They killed, stole and raped. Whatever and whoever they could get their hands on they took."
The two teams had gotten a bit quiet after the story.
And they had stayed that way until they had reached the hospital where Teuchi had worked at. At his instruction, they carried in the boxes containing the medicines to a storage room. Afterwards they had all met up with the good doctor at the lobby.
Naruto suddenly noted the large quantities of people that were waiting in the lobby. He could see a good two or three dozen people looking at him suspiciously and some even a little bit hatefully. It wasn't that new of a feeling to him but he could see some of his allies getting a little uncomfortable.
The bright side of being a village-wide pariah, he heard a familiar voice in his head say.
He almost laughed at that, if he didn't consider it to be so tasteless.
"Go around town and inform people of the new medicine available." Those were Naruto's instructions.
For some reason he got the really, really boring job.
Hinata, Kiba and Shino were sent around the area around the village as scouts to see if there were any nearby dangers or some shit like that. Sakura and Sasuke were back at the hospital helping to prepare the medicine with Teuchi. Kakashi and Kurenai were each off doing their own thing.
He was stuck spreading the word.
It was actually pretty demeaning. Going around to houses and informing them of the new medicine available. It was like he was a goddamn salesman.
But he did it. He had asked for the mission and there was no sense in complaining now.
Is this what C-Rank missions are actually like, he had thought to himself after completed what had to be at least eighty percent of the houses in the entire goddamn village.
He suddenly missed having A-Rank missing-nins attack him.
"Get out of our town, shinobi!" He barely dodged a barrage of pebbles that came at him from behind. It was a group of annoying kids attacking him. Correction, it was the group of annoying kids attacking. The same group that had been following him around all day.
All. Freaking. Day.
It being the fourth time, and Naruto thinking that he had already shown enough lenience, he gave a loud growl and charged at the kids. They all gave their own separate shrieks and headed in separate directions. He decided to go after the one that had seemed like the leader.
Of course being ten times faster he had reached the kid in no time flat and soon enough had him held upside down in the air by his ankle.
"Leggo of me!" The kid was surprisingly light. And he squirmed. Naruto had to hold him at full arm's length to avoid the kicks and punches the kid made at him.
"Apologize."
"No!"
"Then you're just going to have to get comfortable."
"L-Let go of me, you jerk!"
"Apologize."
"No."
"I said-"
"Let go off him!" An older, more feminine voice yelled.
The owner was a brunette with extremely dark eyes.
"I said let go!" She repeated.
"He attacked me," he said plainly, "Why should I?"
"Because you're older and you're a ninja." He supposed they were somewhat valid reasons and let the kid down. Not gently, of course.
The young dark-haired boy scowled at him and ran to the woman, hiding behind her.
"Go home, Sasuke." Sasuke? Now that explained a lot.
The boy stuck his tongue out at him one more time before running off. What an annoying brat.
"Why were you attacking my brother?" The girl was upon him in an instant. Evidently, she was the dark-haired boy's sister.
"Hi, I'm Naruto. It's good to meet you too."
"Why were you attacking my brother?" She repeated, obviously annoyed by his sarcasm.
"He attacked me first," he said defensively.
About four times, he wanted to add.
She only glared.
"That doesn't give you the right to attack him back!"
"Why not!"
"He's smaller!"
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." He didn't really want to get into a shouting match with the girl
She looked a bit put off at this, as if she wanted to nag him further, but relented.
"I suppose I'm sorry for Sasuke's actions as well. He's only young and you are a ninja so you have to forgive him."
He didn't have to, but he didn't say that.
"It's fine. I should have held back my temper." There was no point in not being friendly back to the girl who was actually trying.
"I'm Kane." He introduced himself as Naruto once again.
Kane was a seventeen year old girl who lived with her mother and brother only. Her father had died in the last shinobi attack about seven years ago. She worked as a volunteer nurse at the hospital where Teuchi worked. When he asked about him she immediately brightened.
"He's such a wonderful man! Our townspeople have so much to thank him for. He's been so great to us all these years." She went on to describe his various achievements, his likes, dislikes and so much more. The amount of information that she had on the man couldn't be considered legal, could it?
They had actually ended up getting along surprisingly well, despite their not-so-pleasant first meeting. They met up several more times after that. Naruto didn't mind, Kane being the only person in the town that didn't hate or fear him on sight. She seemed to like his company and had told him that she had not had many people her age to talk to in the past. They made conversations on whatever they could, which evidently was everything. The girl had a big mouth on her, he found. She was similar to him in that aspect.
"My mother's really sick," she said to him one day, "The medicine you guys brought is hopefully going to help her. Along with hopefully the rest of the village."
"Is there some sort of village-wide disease going on?"
"Yes."
"Is that why the town's so empty?"
"That's a different story. This town isn't exactly the luckiest place to live in. Aside from the sickness that just overtook us, we've had to face many different hardships in the past."
"Like the shinobi attack?" Her clouded over with something akin to absolute hatred at the mention of it. It took him a moment to recognize that the hatred wasn't directed towards him.
"It was a terrible night. I was only ten when it happened. It was the most horrible night of my life. The shinobi just burst into town and started looting and killing left and right." She paused and seemed to choke a bit before saying the next part of her story. "They broke into our house and s-slit dad's throat in front of us. Mother jumped at them and tried to fend them off but that only spurred them on. Then they...then they raped her. Right in front of me."
She was crying at that point. He didn't know what to do. Crying women weren't really his specialty.
"I was too young to understand it at the time." She continued tearfully. "I just knew that they were hurting my mommy and I didn't want them to. I kept yelling for them to stop and eventually one of them hit me hard enough to knock me out."
At this point she had broken down and stopped making coherent words, instead sobbing into her hands.
He suddenly felt like an ass for bringing the subject up.
It took a while for her to compose herself, to his discomfort but she after a bit of time she was herself again, albeit a little sniffly.
"Sasuke," she muttered, "He was born nine months after that incident."
People said he was a really dense person. He wasn't that dense.
He still didn't know what to say though.
"Oh."
"You don't have to say anything. In fact, don't ever say anything about this topic to anyone." She looked at him seriously.
"I promise." He kept his promises.
She smiled half-heartedly at him.
"Thank you for listening."
Wiping her eyes one last time, she got up from the bench they had been seated on.
"That's enough crying! I've got to get to the hospital now. I'll see you there, Naruto-kun!"
"For sure." He gave her a grin and waved her goodbye.
Umako Sashi looked amongst his men. The past few weeks hadn't been great for him. Their previous attempts to take over the territory of other bandit bands had gone terribly. They had actually lost more territory than they had gained during that time because of the other bands startling decision to hire missing-nins.
Every fucking body was hiring missing-nins now. It really pissed him off.
He himself had only four ninja in his band, just to his luck. That coupled with the good fifty men that followed him was normally good enough to take care of whatever problem stepped their way. However when that problem included other ninja everything just seemed to go out of control. When things got out of control his mood would get out of control
However there was still something that would put his mood back into the happy place it once was.
That was good old pillaging and plundering.
And they just happened to have the perfect village in their sights.
"Oye, Daisuke. Go gather up the others. We leave tomorrow."
His ever-present minion nodded and set about to do as ordered.
"Why don't you take your worthless ninja asses and get the hell out of my town?"
"S-Sir, please. It'll only be a little while longer before Teuchi-san will see you." Despite Hinata's attempts to calm the man down he only went on about worthless ninjas and where they should take their asses.
It was a pattern with many of the older men and woman. The ones old enough to be grandparents, to be exact. They would constantly insult whoever it was they saw was wearing a headband. It was annoying and frustrating but the ninjas couldn't do anything about it.
They had a mission, after all.
"Please, Kyoko-san. I promise you that Teuchi-san will see you in a minute." The voice of Kane interrupted them and soon enough the brunette was beside the old man, calming him down.
Hinata really disliked her. Out of jealousy, of course. Considering that the brunette had spent more time with Naruto-kun in the last week than she had her entire life, she thought it was only fair.
When Kane looked back at Hinata, her face was plain. She didn't really like any of the ninjas.
"Please don't rile him up too much. He can't afford to be yelling at this age. I have to go home now, so please be responsible." The dark-eyed girl then walked away, ignoring her protests.
She really disliked her.
Then she had to go back to the whining of Kyoko-san as he told her how she should be more like Kane.
She disliked the mission in general.
Finally, after she had finished wheeling the geezer off to the doctor's room, she walked straight back to the lobby and promptly sat down on one of the seats.
"I hate this mission," she mumbled.
"Tell me about it." She heard the person sitting next to her murmur.
When she turned to see who it was her heart almost skipped a bit. It was Naruto, looking just about as sullen as her, if not more. He was talking to her! She could've given out a shout of joy.
However she composed herself. She had been waiting for this opportunity all week. Best not to waste it.
"Y-Yeah." That was it? That was the best she could do?
"H-How's your week been, Naruto-kun?" That was good!
He gave her a shrug.
"Pretty terrible, give or take. Though from what you said earlier I'm guessing I'm not the only one whose week sucked?" He gave her an understanding grin.
She giggled a bit at that. Not because it was all that funny, but because she was really giddy that she was conversing with her Naruto-kun!
"It's been bad for me too," she said, before realizing that she was sounding very uninteresting. "Our last C-Rank mission was a lot better." She added in haste, hoping she still had her interest.
"Oh? Why don't you tell me about it?" He was curious! Yes! The perfect opportunity she had been waiting for. She was going to converse with Naruto. There was no way this moment could be ruined!
"Bandits! Bandits are attacking!" A man exclaimed, rushing in.
...She really shouldn't have tempted fate.
Naruto was on his feet in a moment's notice, immediately questioning the man.
After they had gotten their information, Naruto turned his attention to her.
"Do you know where everybody else is?" The urgency in his voice immediately
"K-Kurenai-sensei is upstairs with Kakashi-san and Teuchi-san. Shino-kun and Kiba-kun went to go get something to eat. Sakura-san is on the other side of the hospital. I...I don't know where Sasuke-san is."
"Go find Kakashi and Kurenai." He ordered. "Tell them the situation. Tell Sakura on the way if you can. I'm gonna go and check things out on the outside."
She didn't even get a chance to nod as he ran out the door of the hospital.
She found herself frozen for nearly a minute before she snapped out of it and sprinted off into the direction of the stairs. She met Sakura on the way but didn't stop in front of the puzzled girl, instead dragging her by her arm right up to Teuchi's room. She burst into the room and shouted at the top of her lungs for Kurenai-sensei and Kakashi-san.
Both turned towards her, as did Teuchi-san and old Kyoko who looked annoyed at the interruption.
"Bandits! They're attacking the town!"
Kurenai and Kakashi both exchanged a looked before immediately barking orders.
"Hinata, tell us exactly what happened."
She did.
"Do you have an account of where everyone is at the moment?"
She told them what she had told Naruto. And then she told them Naruto had run off.
Kakashi swore a bit before announcing his orders.
"Hinata, Sakura, protect the hospital. We're going to go out and see what's going on."
"We'll send people who need shelter her for refuge so be prepared." Kurenai added. Kakashi nodded, agreeing to the plan.
"If we see any of the boys we'll send them back to you."
After Kakashi's last statement they both disappeared from the room.
A/N: That's right. I'm introducing my own cliché filler-plot into the fanfic. What're you gonna do about it? :|
Naw but seriously. This little side-plot is just my little chance to practice my hand at OCs and fight scenes and stuff. I am only a beginner and all so you can't really blame me for wanting to get some more practice. I'll hope that it's interesting at least and I'll tell you that the next chapter is the only other chapter having to do with this arc of mine.
And before you guys read on I thought I'd let you guys know that this most likely will not be a pairings story; at least not this early on. I'd say you're going to have to wait a little while before I introduce an actual relationship into the story. It probably won't be NaruHina though. I don't really care much for Hinata's character at this point and unless I change that then no-can-do. Or NaruSaku because of the same reasons. Though that's not to say that either of those pairings will never happen. I'm just saying that I'd like to get in some good old fashioned character and plot development before I even consider romance. Even then I think I might not, considering I've seen all to many fanfics get ruined for me by introducing a romance that is neither realistic nor likeable.
There will be unrequited love however, as you will see in this chapter. Too often have I seen Naruto simply fall out of love with Sakura as soon as one simple thing happens to change his life (followed by the cliché 'meeting-another-female plan'?). I doubt he's going to get together with her in this story, or even actively attempt to go out with her as he did in Canon, but there's definitely going to be some good old bitter one sided crush going on in here.
Also: I'm releasing this as a double chapter update 'cause I love everybody. You can pay me back with feedback for each ahah.
...I was trying too hard with Kane wasn't I?