NaruTen: New World Sojourn

Chapter 3

"So, what do you think about this whole thing?" Tenten asked as she watched their Pokegirls train amidst the copse of trees they had come to see as a pseudo-training site. "Trans-dimension travel, enough new species to make Tsunade-sama drool and loose enough legal lines to make the Old Pervert shed tears of joy."

Head resting on her lap as he enjoyed the cool afternoon breeze, Naruto cracked an eye open to glance at the two Pokegirls.

The Pokegirls had taken to the training regimen that Naruto and his fiancée had set up with such zeal and adeptness that the blond had been left wondering exactly what kind of twisted genius this 'Sukebe' man had been. Alexa's skill at shurikenjutsu had shot up from zero to high genin bordering on low chūnin levels, putting her squarely on par with pre-Chūnin exam Sasuke after only a week of training while his own girl, Chelsea, had split a leaf within six hours of his demonstration. Now, three days after his initial demonstration, she was working on splitting a rock in half and had only taken so much time because he had opted to help her counter her most glaring weakness: close quarter combat.

That kind of learning curve was nigh-insane to think about.

With a sigh, the blond dragged an arm over his face, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow. "Well, Baa-chan would gladly give her left arm for one or two specimens to study and Ero-sennin would gladly shave his hair if he thought it would give him a chance to land in this world." The shinobi couple smiled at the thought before he continued. "Frankly speaking, though, it's a pretty good place, this world, considering the weird ass kind of shit they went through in their past. Pretty peaceful, clean atmosphere, loose enough morals to permit some levels of decadence without losing sight of the moral compass… it's a pretty nice place. At the very least, it's a damned sight better than the world I threw us off."

"Yeah…" Tenten trailed off as the crux of the issue that had been bothering her reared its head. Her fingers playing idly in the blond's hair, she absentmindedly called out a warning to Alexa so the girl wouldn't strain herself too much under the recently applied resistance seal she now found herself subjected to.

Deep down, Tenten didn't quite consider Konoha worthy of her undying loyalty and the root cause lay in her lap.

In her generation, she had been among the very first to figure out exactly why the blond was so hated. It was, she had later admitted to Naruto a few weeks after they'd gotten together, painfully obvious; the adults hated him and called him a demon even when he had been too young to have earned the title. Couple that with the exponential increase in hate for him during his birthday and the very first line of the Academy's füinjutsu expert, 'seals can be used to contain damn near anything, from a single senbon to a bijū and the mystery had all but unraveled itself. The most important key to unraveling his puzzle, she had explained, was simple interest in the blond himself. Knowledge of his paternal lineage had come mere moments later.

With that knowledge came disillusionment.

The realization that the village she had once seen as infallible in both military might and moral behavior could be so horribly twisted just beneath the surface had almost broken her will to continue as a shinobi. As with a number of other cases, her fiancé, the very reason for her disillusionment, was also the reason for her renewed determination.

She had been lucky to walk past Ichiraku's on one of the afternoons that she'd chosen to skip classes altogether when she heard it; that exuberant, constantly enthused throaty voice that belonged to him.

He was discussing with the Sandaime Hokage then, together with the Ichiraku family on why he wanted to become the Hokage and his exact words were: "… so that everyone can see me and I can protect everyone in the village! But most of all, so I can help Konoha be exactly the type of village old man Hashirama wanted it to be!"

Perhaps it was because of just how close she was to him in terms of age or maybe it was because she had been studying him for a while; whatever the reason, though, Tenten was instantly able to understand the meaning of the blond's last sentence.

Where she had grown disillusioned by the darkness she perceived in the home she had once loved, the blond Uzumaki, the son of the fourth Hokage, chose to live up to his father's legacy whether he knew it or not: he had seen the darkness, more than she had, he had experienced it. He knew how dangerously wrong it was yet, instead of choosing to run, he chose to stand before the darkness, to be the blazing light that would cast away the darkness and bring forth a new dawn.

He wanted to achieve the goal the First Hokage had dreamed of: true peace in the Village; a place with no strife, no prejudice and no discrimination.

She'd fallen in love with him on the spot and vowed to do all she could to support him even if he never noticed her.

That he did, and had consequently fallen in love with her, was just the proverbial icing.

Yet, that was exactly the problem: she wasn't loyal to Konoha but to Uzumaki Naruto. If he chose to return then she would help him get back but, as far as she was concerned, staying here was the best option. No Akatsuki seeking his head, no Danzō looking to use him as weapon (and thank God that fucker was dead), no war, no retrieving some asshole that didn't even want to be saved…

She wanted to stay because Uzumaki Naruto fucking deserved to stay. After all the shit he'd been through, a break was the least he deserved.

"You want me to stay don't you?"

His voice broke her out of her thoughts, his words striking perfectly at the heart of the matter.

She could have lied to him if it was something trivial though he would ultimately discover thanks to that pesky negative emotion sensing Kurama had granted him but this was a serious matter.

She nodded.

He sighed.

"Naruto, you deserve to stay." She murmured, trying to get him to see her point. "After the shit you've been through, the very least you deserve is a break. A break from all of the madness that our world pushed onto you."

"What about the war, Tenten? The people we've left behind to fight this war… they need me."

"Bullshit. That's o much bullshit and you know it." She rejoined. "You know as well as I do that, beyond Tsunade-sama, Shizune-san and a scant few others, most people still aren't comfortable around you. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and say that the person that needs you most is that masked bastard and we both know just why he needs you."

"Tenten that's not…"

"You know I'm right." She stated, cutting him off brusquely. She knew that, should she let him start, his natural charisma combined with her love for him would sway her to his way of thinking and that simply wouldn't do. "Whether you like it or not, that masked bastard needs you to complete his plans. Now that he knows that you're pretty much erased from that world, he has two options: give up or continue fighting. And since Killer Bee, Guy-sensei and Kakashi-san had just reported a success on their mission to take out Kabuto out of the equation, he's lost the most vital part of his offensive capabilities."

"And the white Zetsus?"

"Tsunade-sama had a plan for that remember? Since Yamato-taichō had his chakra forcibly used to create them en masse, he can detect the sliver o his chakra in them. She had it tested and it worked so all they need do now is to link him up with other sensors so they know exactly what they're looking for. Plus, Gaara-sama had his best sealing experts working on creating barriers to detect the Zetsus." She could feel it, the legendary resolve of Uzumaki Naruto crumbling as she rammed it with point after point, showing no mercy as she went.

Later, when she looked back on the argument and noted how he seemed to offer up what amounted to a token resistance, she realized the truth; he'd waded into the argument with his resolve already shaken.

Like he wanted her to convince him to stay…

"You know she has a point, brat."

'Don't you dare start up too Kurama.' Naruto snapped irritably at the bijū as he focused on Chelsea, sensing more than seeing the energy that she wielded as she worked to split the fist sized rock hovering just above her palm. 'It's bad enough that I'm considering Tenten's words so much, please don't pressure me here.'

"You know I'm not trying to pressure you, kid, but the reality of things is that your girl's right. No, shut up, you need to hear this." The biju snapped at him. "I get that your loyalty to ?Konoha is damned near undying but, if we are being absolutely realistic here, their loyalty to you is shaky at best. Remember the Retrieval fuck-up? Danzo was all too willing to throw you to the dogs, have them tear at you until you were broken so he could swoop in and take whatever was left and mold it into his dream toy. If it weren't for the combined effort of the old pervert and his big tittied tsundere, the cripple bastard would have won. And do you remember who the dogs were? They were the civilians you want to kill yourself for. They were willing to rip you apart for failing a mission that was doomed from the very beginning. That Uchiha fuck would never willingly have returned to Konoha and anyone with half a brain could have seen that."

'Things have changed since I got back! Since we defeated Nagato, things have been looking up!' The blond argued back mentally as he shouted out some advice for his Pokegirl.

Kurama's disdainful scoff was a thing of legends. "Sure they love you. I mean, it isn't like you single-handedly took down the biggest threat to the village since the Sound invasion. Gods you are so naive! Humans are all too willing to put their hate and fear aside in the face of shitty situations and in subsequent victories over said shitty situations. The only reason things haven't gone back to the old status quo is that the situation just got more hectic from that point onward. Look at your sensei, the old pervert. Women hated him when he was just an aspiring shinobi but the moment he became one of THE Sannin, ladies gladly threw their pants at him in broad daylight! Then when your dear old dad took the limelight, they abandoned his ass faster than your mom could bully your dad!

"Look kid, I just want you to think it over and think it over good. Your girl's right; this world, for all its flaws, is downright peaceful compared to the shithole you call home. You have a chance to find real friends, to love beyond Tenten because the options are there. The only person that knows a bit of how different you are has chosen to help you cover up. No matter how bad this place is, at least you will have a family." The biju sighed and Naruto knew that it was resting its jaws back on its paws, preparing to doze off. "If I'm going to be stuck in you, I at least want to be stuck in a happy you."

Bending backward, Chelsea felt the air above her face ripple in the wake of the powerful kick that she'd just dodged. Instead of springing back up though, she continued to lean until her hands rested on the grass. Then, like a coiled spring loosed, her legs shot upward in an arc, forcing her attacker back and giving herself enough space to land in a crouch and prepare herself for another assault.

Opposite her, the Guntit, Alexa, balanced herself and settled into a ready stance as well. Both combatants were drenched in sweat, Alexa more so than Chelsea as her fighting style required that she was constantly performing acrobatic twists to bring her legs to the offensive, thus freeing her hands for her Pokegirl attacks.

With a sigh, Alexa dropped her hands and stretched tiredly. "Do you mind stopping? Cause I'm bushed."

With an exhausted sigh of her own, Chelsea dropped to the grass and laid back. "I was just about to suggest the same thing." She flicked a thumb at their masters who were engaged in their own training. "Am I the only one that thinks they're both sadists?"

"If I hadn't been through a similar training as you, I'd probably feel annoyed by that comment." The Guntit replied as she sat beside the Airmaiden. "As it stands, though, I fully agree."

"It's just so difficult to wrap my head around." Chelsea continued. "I mean, a whole week later and multiple forms of proof and I'm still expecting to find myself waking up."

"Yet, deep inside you know its true and not just because of the bond between the two of you." Alexa nodded. "It just feels… real."

"Exactly."

Both Pokegirls sighed as their bodies recovered from the strain they had been put through.

Alexa sat up and turned to her friend. "Hey, have you noticed the way they've been behaving lately?"

"I'm not too sure what you mean regarding your master." Chelsea furrowed her brows a bit. "But I have noticed that, for the past hour or so, Naruto has been going around looking a bit conflicted."

"Exactly." The Guntit agreed. "And Tenten seemed a bit distant when I last saw them talking."

"You think it's a 'lover's spat' kind of thing?"

Alexa shrugged. "I just hope they agree to settle things soon; I really don't want to lose your master's dinners." Noticing her friend's raised eyebrow, the Guntit shrugged nonchalantly. "Hey, the man can cook."

Naruto sighed as he walked toward Tenten's armory. He just wasn't sure what he wanted.

It wasn't like he didn't enjoy the seeming peace of this world and the chance to have a peaceful family life it was just that… Without Tsunade, Shizune, the Ichirakus and the few other friends he had… It didn't sit right with him that he had left all of his loved ones fighting a war that had been waged because of what he was.

He had to explain all that to his fiancee.

"Someone's deep in thought." Tenten smiled as she jumped on to his back.

"You weren't in the armory?"

The brunette rested her chin on his shoulder. "That's your first question?"

The blond had the sense to look sheepish. "Sorry, that just came out-"

The rest of the conversation was derailed by the ringing of his wrist-phone.

"Professor?" The two offworlders seemed baffled by the call from the professor that had aided their introduction to the new world. "What's wrong?" Naruto added as he noticed the tenseness in her features.

"How far are you from Silvergalde? Because we need help."