It was another nice sunny day in Konoha, and this time it was afternoon. This time there warn't (1) no little punk running around vandalizing the respectable monument. This time, the teacher and the little punk were getting ready to go for a walk. The teacher was under the doorway and the punk was outside the doorway.
"Hurry up, Iruka sensei!!" Naruto shouted as he literally bounced around in small circles. Iruka sensei laughed.
"You have so much energy! Where do you get it all from?"
"I dunno!! But let's go NOW!" Naruto grabbed Iruka sensei's hand and tried to run off, but Iruka held him back.
"We're going on a walk, Naruto kun, not a sprint." Iruka sensei stopped and pondered. "Now if only you had this much energy when you're studying…eh, Naruto?" The young boy looked down sheepishly.
"Mah, whatever. Come on!!"
They followed the path leading away from the apartment buildings and towards the park, purposely not going in the direction of the Ichiraku Ramen shop. At the park, Naruto and Iruka sensei waved to the kids. They went to the training grounds, and Iruka pulled out a kunai for Naruto to throw at one of the targets.
"Good ninjas must learn to have very precise aim. Give it a try!"
The kunai hit the wood with a thunk, but it didn't exactly hit the right spot. The ninja in training grumbled. His teacher took out another knife and showed his student how to throw it correctly and in the dead center. The third kunai was for Naruto to try again. This time, it did hit the center. The ninja in training gave a loud, excited whoop.
"Just wait till I get better than you, Iruka sensei! Wait till I get my headband when I graduate!"
"Don't get so high and mighty, Naruto!" Iruka sensei chuckled.
They continued walking through the training fields and then to the woods. The hyper little blond accidentally tripped over a tree root and did a face plant into the mud. Iruka sensei couldn't help but burst out laughing. Naruto pouted.
"Iruka sensei, it's not funny!" He threw a bit of mud at his teacher.
Farther into the woods, there was a creek. Iruka sensei sat down on the cool grass and told Naruto to wash off the mud on his face. After splashing a bit of the fresh water onto his muddy face, Naruto plopped down beside Iruka sensei.
"Hey, Iruka sensei?"
"Hm?"
"…I'm gonna pass the test right? I'll pass it and I'll get to be a ninja like you, right?"
"Of course, Naruto. Of course you will pass the test. Do you doubt that you will?"
Naruto hesitated. "Well, it's just that… I'm not as strong as everyone else. They're all better than me! I don't think I'll ever be as good as them!"
Iruka sensei smiled. "Naruto, you can be just as strong as all of them. If you work hard enough, you might even be able to be stronger than all of them!"
Naruto thought this over very carefully.
"Iruka sensei?"
"Hm?"
"I know what I'm gonna be when I grow up now."
Iruka sensei was puzzled.
"Weren't you going to be a ninja?"
"Yeah! But I wanna be better than just a ninja." The boy stood up. "I wanna be… Hokage!"
"That's a big goal, Naruto," Iruka said.
"Yeah, but I know I'm gonna be Hokage. I'm gonna be the greatest one there ever was!"
Iruka sensei smiled. He was proud of Naruto. Proud of him as if he were his own son. Naruto turned around and said to Iruka sensei, "Come on! Let's finish our walk!" He held out a hand to help Iruka sensei up.
They walked along the edge of the creek, though not too close so they wouldn't fall in, in which Naruto almost did.
"Ne, Iruka sensei! What's that?" The boy pointed at something lying on the grass ahead of them. They both approached it and saw it was a swallow.
"Iruka sensei! It's hurt!" Naruto exclaimed. He reached out, but Iruka held him back, going forward to pick it up himself.
"Its wing is broken. You must be careful." Iruka brought it eyelevel to Naruto, who gazed at it in sorrow.
"What do we do Iruka sensei? What do we do? It has to get better!" Iruka silently agreed, for he was a big fan of nature, but he wasn't quite sure what exactly to do with it.
"Hey!" Naruto suddenly exclaimed. "I know! We can take it to my house and I'll keep it till it gets better!"
Iruka hesitated to agree. "Um…I'm not sure that's a good idea, Naruto."
"Why? It can't just stay out here! What if a cat comes and eats it?" The boy's big blue eyes began to water.
"How about we take it to my house and treat it, okay?" Iruka bargained.
Naruto gave it some thought and then said, "Okay."
They walked back to Iruka's apartment where Iruka broke a chopstick in half and tied it to the swallow's wing with bandages as a brace.
"There, that will hold the bird's wing right until it heals and fixes itself in time," Iruka explained. Naruto grinned happily.
"Yay! Tsubame (swallow) chan, you'll get better real fast now!"
The little swallow lifted its head up and chirped a few times.
"Tsubame chan says 'thank you', Iruka sensei!" Naruto exclaimed.
In a few weeks time, the swallow's wing had completely healed. Naruto was reluctant to let it go back into the wild, but Iruka told him that it was Tsubame chan's home, and that Tsubame needed to go back to its own home. Naruto put the swallow on the window sill where it flapped its wings a few times and flew out into the sky.
"Bye Tsubame chan!!" Naruto called after it. The swallow chirped back in reply.
(1) Haha, we're reading Huckleberry Finn in one of my classes and Mark Twain uses "warn't" a lot, so I decided to try it. Yeah!
One more chapter! Hm...this does seem like there is no point in this story, doesn't it? Well, I think it sort of does... One more chapter to go! And it'll be kind of sad. I'll try to make it kind of sad. And fluffy. :3
