So, roughly 25 reviews. . . that's pretty good, compared to my other stories. By the way, you should check out Phoenix: Catching Air and Bitter, and tell me what you think. Haha, shameless plug, insert here.
Anyways, onto the next chapter. Y'know, this chapter really didn't want to be written. It just didn't. Can't imagine why. It was both the length of this chapter (somewhat), the lack of inspiration (mostly), and my own laziness (a little bit) that made this chapter take so long.
Pardonne-moi.
By the way, if you're wondering if he actually dies in this chapter, then, yeah, he's dead. He won't be coming back. Just thought I'd clear that up. Also, Haku-chan doesn't exist in the way that you know him. He never went with Zabuza in this story. And he's a girl. Not that I'm a huge fan of femHaku stories or anything, it just works for this story. Just clearing that up as well.
I don't own Naruto.
Story of a Narcoleptic Genius
Chapter 4
Whatever It Takes
Naruto had no idea why life seemed to enjoy screwing with him so much, but the evidence for such was right before his eyes, in the form of a swordsman with a gigantic zanbatou; his teacher being imprisoned in a water globe; and clones of previously mentioned swordsman blocking him from helping much.
How did they get into this position, you ask?
Hell if he should know. Ino, Sasuke, himself, and Kakashi were just walking down the road, minding their own business as they guarded the old drunk, Tazuna, on their way to the old drunk's house, when he suddenly sensed something in the bushes. He threw a kunai, but it turned out to be a white bunny. Then Kakashi tells them all to drop down, and one thing led to the next, and now here they were, with no choice except to save their teacher's sorry ass from the Demon of the Hidden Mist, Momochi Zabuza (the swordsman with the gigantic zanbatou).
Dammit. And here he thought that his teacher was actually strong. Didn't he used to be an ANBU captain? What the hell!
"Hey, Sasuke. Listen for a sec," Naruto said.
"You got a plan, dobe? Okay then," Sasuke said. Naruto wasn't looking, but he could hear the smirk in the teme's voice.
"Just don't mess up, Sasuke-teme."
Zabuza was in deep shit. Okay, there were probably better ways to put it, but currently, he could care less, and swearing made him feel better about it.
He thought that he'd had this fight in the bag. After all, the only one worth worrying about was Sharingan no Kakashi, and that guy had brats to protect. It was all going so smoothly. He'd fought with Kakashi, and managed to get him stuck in the water, before he trapped him in his Water Prison Technique. It was all perfect. . . and then those brats that he didn't think twice about managed to get together and trick him into releasing said jutsu so now he was fighting Kakashi again, and he wasn't coming out on the better end.
Zabuza cursed Kakashi, cursed his eye, cursed the brats, and then cursed Kakashi again (for good measure), before he was thrown into a tree. He looked up into the branches to see Kakashi looking down at him with a kunai.
"Can that damn eye of yours predict the future or something?" Zabuza demanded.
"You wanna hear a prediction, Zabuza? You're going to die." And without another word, the kunai came down, and Zabuza knew no more.
"Kakashi-sensei? Oi, Kakashi-sensei? Wake up!" Ino said, shaking Kakashi's shoulder. She looked up at Naruto as he came to her side. "He's out cold."
"Yeah, so I gathered," Naruto said dryly. He pulled Kakashi's hitai-ate down, and then started rummaging around in Kakashi's pouches.
"What are you doing, dobe?" Sasuke said, coming up to the group with Tazuna in tow.
"Looking for – ah! Here it is! Here you go, Ino," Naruto said, holding out a little orange book to the girl. Her eyes lit up with what could only be described as sadistic pleasure.
"Why thank you, Naruto," Ino said, chuckling evilly. She put the book in her pouch, then looked at Naruto as a thought crossed her mind. "By the way, where'd your narcolepsy go? Normally you're sleeping all the time. What happened?"
"I met a princess who preferred me to stay awake when in her presence," Naruto muttered under his breath. He blinked as he realized what he said, and had to fight down a blush of epic proportions.
"Well, whatever it is that's woken you up, it's a good thing. Now, what are we going to do about our sensei?" Ino asked, oblivious to Naruto's murmurs (not that he was complaining).
"Here, I'll carry him," Naruto said. He made a couple clones and they picked Kakashi up. "Lead the way, Tazuna."
"Naruto, how the hell can your clones carry Kakashi? Clones don't have substance – they're just images." Ino looked at the blonde with a raised eyebrow.
"Not these ones. I can't make regular clones anyways, so I learned Shadow Clones instead – they're like Zabuza's Water Clones, but instead of water, I use shadows."
"Oh."
"You coming, Ino?" Naruto called to her. She realized that she was holding them up, and rushed after them to walk beside Naruto and ask what other things he knew.
Kakashi woke up with a start. He immediately noticed three things: One, he was on a futon. He definitely didn't have enough energy to walk anywhere after the fight, so someone must have carried him and put him to bed. Two, his hitai-ate was pulled back down. He thanked whichever student of his was smart enough to do that for him. And three, he was obviously suffering from chakra exhaustion.
. . . Fuck.
He heard a sound and turned his head to see that apparently Naruto had walked in. He was alone, and when he saw that Kakashi was awake, he raised his eyebrow.
"You've been out for a whole day, we're currently at Tazuna's house, and Tazuna has a daughter and grandson. Ino and Sasuke are with Tazuna at the bridge – the bridge is wide and open. You'd be able to see an attack coming from just about anywhere. I've got Shadow Clones patrolling the outside of the house, which is located near a forest."
Kakashi blinked. "Thorough report. Where did you learn to do that?" Naruto had just given a description of the mission, the status of the mission, and the location of his teammates, all with the professionalism of a subordinate reporting to his superior.
"I don't know what you could possibly mean," Naruto said with a grin. Kakashi shook his head, then stopped because it made his head hurt.
"So, what now? All things considered, I'm worried about what the next Nuke Nin is going to be like. After all, I highly doubt that Gatou's going to stop just because we managed to kill Zabuza. And considering that Zabuza is an A-rank Nuke-nin, I'm worried that the next one might even be S-rank. So, what are we gonna do, Kakashi?"
Kakashi was too tired to even ask Naruto to call him sensei. "We're gonna wait for your teammates to come back before we do anything else. In the meantime, I'm going to get some more rest."
"Understood, taichou."
"Taichou?"
"You're currently the acting commander here. So, yeah, taichou."
"You're willing to call me captain, but you're not willing to call me teacher?"
"That's because you've earned the title of captain, whereas you haven't earned the title of teacher. If you have a problem with that, then start teaching and maybe I'll consider it," Naruto said. He didn't even say it sarcastically, it was stated like a statement of fact. Was Naruto that tired? Speaking of which. . .
"Yes, well, thank you Naruto, and wake me up when the others get here."
"Hai, taichou."
Thank God that he's in a cooperative mood. . .
"So, what are we going to do now, Kakashi-sensei?" asked Ino later.
"We're going to train."
"And how are we going to do that, Kakashi?" Naruto asked, raising his eyebrow.
"Do you guys know the tree walking and water walking exercises?"
"I do."
"Well, I know tree walking..."
"The what and the what exercises?"
Naruto and Sasuke looked at Ino, then at each other, and then Naruto said, "I'll teach you, Ino. It'll help with your control and also your capacity."
"Oh... okay..."
"And I'll show you the water walking exercise too, Sasuke."
"...Thanks, dobe."
"You're welcome, teme."
"Well, in that case, we have something for those two, but what about you, Naruto?" Kakashi said.
"What about me? Hmm?" Naruto asked back. There was some amusement in his tone. "What are you gonna teach me?"
"Hmm... Well, I could start teaching you some new jutsu - "
"Denied."
"... What?"
"I'd rather work on my basics rather than trying to master new jutsu or anything."
"Makes sense. Well, how about we work on a different exercise that involves whirlpools?"
"And what does that entail, exactly?"
"Basically you have to walk around a whirlpool going against the flow without getting pulled in or going under."
"Huh, haven't heard of that one before. Sounds good, Kakashi-sensei."
Everyone froze. Then Kakashi looked at Naruto, who was calmly eating, and said, somewhat faintly. "...What?"
"You're finally acting like a sensei, so I'm calling you that. Now, when are we starting, Kakashi-sensei?"
"...Tomorrow."
"'Kay. Well, I'm done, so I'm gonna head to bed. Thank you for the great meal, Tsunami-san."
"You're welcome, Naruto-kun." Tsunami smiled at the boy. She liked the boy - he was bright, cheerful, witty, and seemed to understand their plight.
"Night, everyone," Naruto said, before heading to the room he shared with Kakashi and Sasuke.
"You okay, Ino?" Naruto asked as he watched her land on her back after trying to get up the tree she had chosen for her exercise.
"Yeah. I'm fine. You can go and work on something else, you know, Naruto," Ino said, and she flashed a smile at him that made him feel like blushing. He didn't know what the hell his problem was when he was around Ino, but whenever he was, he felt wide-awake and alert, like he could take on an army, and he wanted Ino to be there when he did...
Wait, that sounded suspiciously like what he would feel like if he liked her...
...Dammit. Had he fallen for her? Talk about bad luck. She was so focused on Sasuke, too... He'd never have a chance.
He frowned at that thought, but shook his head, and told himself sternly, You should be working on something else right now. Stop thinking about this, or you're going to get depressed.
"Well, alright then. I'll go and help Sasuke with the water exercise."
"Okay. See you around, Naruto."
"Yeah."
He didn't notice Ino watching his back as he walked away, or how she continued looking for after him even after he disappeared. She finally turned back to the tree in front of her, and thought, In order to prove myself to them...
Ugh, this is difficult, Sasuke thought as he tried to walk on water. It was harder than he thought it would be. Damn! He fell under again. Thank God he'd brought a spare change of clothes, or he'd be in for a very uncomfortable night.
He glanced over and looked at Naruto watching him calmly as he attempted the exercise. Naruto had already mastered this exercise, and was supposed to be doing a different one involving whirlpools. Why did he continue hanging around with Sasuke then?
"Dobe, don't you have something else to be doing?" Sasuke looked away from Naruto as he said this, trying to maintain his disinterested air. Not to say that he actually did care, but rather, he didn't want to show any interest in anything Naruto could be doing.
"Well, yeah, but I thought I'd hang out around here for a bit in case you need help."
"I'm fine, Dobe, so go do your own exercise."
"Fine, teme, I'll leave you alone." Naruto left the clearing, and Sasuke stared after him for a moment before he went back to the exercise in front of him.
In order to beat that man...
"You ready, Naruto?" Kakashi asked. He had already taught Naruto a jutsu to create a whirlpool in the water, and now was waiting for Naruto to get himself ready to work on the exercise he had set for him.
Naruto stepped out on the water, and started walking. It was difficult and he wavered and dipped continuously, but he never fell completely in. He could barely walk two feet, however, without having one of his feet go under up to the ankle.
"This is really difficult," Naruto muttered.
Yeah, but you're doing better than about 90% of other people who first start this exercise. Are you a genius, Naruto? Hardly anyone is capable of doing so well on this exercise on their first try... Kakashi thought, feeling mildly amazed. He kept watching and felt his amazement grow when, by the end of the day, Naruto was able to make it once around the whirlpool before dipping. It took him about 10 minutes to do so, and he kept wobbling, but still, it was impressive work.
"You ready to go in, Naruto?"
"No. I'll stay out here for a little while longer."
Kakashi shrugged and headed back to the house.
Naruto concentrated on his feet, and walked back out to the whirlpool. In order to protect my precious people...
... I'll do whatever it takes to get stronger!
