"Come on!" I howled into the starlight, voice husky with pain and unwavering resolve. "Show me what you're made of! Prove that you have what it takes to be Uzumaki Naruto, Toad Sage of Konoha, ninth wonder of the world!"
My clone was all too happy to comply, hurtling out of the trees and throwing the both of us into furious close combat. The forest became a blur of midnight colors around us as we pushed our untrained bodies to the limit, blurring in and out of jukes and ducks, our gauntlet-clad fists hovering protectively in front of our faces all the while. My clone lashed out at me again and again with jabs at my face and stomach, swaying along with the rhythm of our exchange.
He pushed me back, his criminally handsome face set in a rictus of determination. He struck at me with all the speed and ferocity of a chakra construct that didn't have to worry about overreaching and being killed for it. My clone was free to rail against me with every ounce of Uzumaki Naruto that I had packed into his yet stocky frame, because he knew that even if he lost there would be another to replace him.
And even so, he was not enough to overcome me.
"You are not Uzumaki Naruto," I intoned, ducking his cross and darting inside his guard. Only then did I move my clenched fists from in front of my face, digging the left one into his unprotected gut and throwing the right one out to my side. I splayed my fingers wide, and vibrant blue chakra bloomed to life in the palm of my gauntlet.
Rasengan!
My father's pride and joy took my left hand's place in the clone's stomach, and he gasped in mixed surprise and pain as the initial impact of the jutsu hit him. I grit my teeth and focused everything on maintaining the miniature bijuudama clutched in my fingers.
A sharp whine of chakra whirling against chakra cut through the late night noises of Konoha's training ground forests as the rasengan came to the end of its first grinding phase and began the transition into its drilling phase. My clone finally dispersed, a ruptured stomach going well beyond its threshold for damage, and I allowed myself a moment of triumph.
Then the rasengan faltered and blew up in my face.
Several hours later, as the sun began to rise and shinobi began funneling into the training grounds district for morning practice and team meetings, I ran amongst the trees with a spring in my step and a bunch of disgustingly sweaty clothes stuck to my skin. It had been a good training session.
When I arrived at my destination, the small river that cut through several of the genin training grounds, including my own, I hurried to rectify my sorry state. Jacket, shirt, pants, and boxers were stripped away one at a time, forming a nasty pile in the hollow of a tree that I had designated as my laundry basket away from home. That done, I spent a few seconds basking in the early morning breeze, and then took a running dive into the river.
The cold water slapped my slight fatigue silly, banishing the aches and pains that my clones and botched attempts at the rasengan had inflicted on me. I shook my head beneath the water, vigorously scratching my scalp, and grinned delightedly as the chill dug deep into the roots of my hair.
I kicked off from the bottom of the river a minute or two later, having scrubbed myself as best as I could, and took off down the river. Fledgling sunlight danced along the surface of the water, broken only by my own strokes through it. It's become something of a routine for me, since my transmigration, to spend my nights literally beating myself into the ground in search of my lost skills. And afterwards, it's become a routine for me to take the river to team training in place of an actual shower at my apartment, because my apartment was a lot lonelier than I remembered it being. It's easier like this, anyway.
I kept track as I swam through training grounds twelve, eleven, ten, nine, and finally, eight. On cue, I spotted a girl in a heavy beige coat running through a set of kata, and waved.
"Morning, Hinata!" I called.
I hadn't ever noticed my first time around as a genin, but Hinata trained like crazy. By the time most genin teams met up in the morning I'd have already been long gone, but Hinata was always there when I passed by. She always seemed to be working on some Hyuuga technique or another, considering she always had her byakugan on, and from what I could tell she trained almost as long as I did before team meetings.
Why else would she be red in the face and stumbling in and out of her kata by the time I went by? She was clearly out there giving it her all long before I showed up. I could definitely respect a work ethic like that.
"G-good morning, Naruto!" She called back in a strained voice, no doubt from all the work she'd been doing.
I made it to my destination a few minutes later: A tree in training ground seven that I had dubbed my dresser away from home and stuffed with a towel and some spare clothes. I pulled myself out of the river and dried off, throwing on my orange pants, mesh shirt, and jumper. That done, and with nothing left to do until the rest of my team decided to show up, I scaled my dresser tree and laid myself out on the branch that I had dubbed my bed away from home.
I threw an arm over my face, closed my eyes, and to the untrained eye, fell asleep. In reality, I turned my focus away from the outside world and dove deep into the dazzling sea of light and warmth that was my chakra system. As time drifted by, I immersed myself deeper and deeper inside, and in doing so I brought myself paradoxically closer to the infinitely more dazzling chakra system of the world around me.
It was something that I had never done before my transmigration- purposefully resonating myself with nature without actually drawing upon its energies. It hadn't been necessary. When the time had come for me to call upon what the toads called sage mode way back when, my body, my yang, had already acclimated itself to the pulse of the world's chakras. By accident, mostly, but there you go.
Now, though, I had the mindset, the yin, but the experiences as a shinobi that had acclimated my yang were gone. Erased by the Rikudou Sennin. So when I could spare the time I forced myself to be still, and I did my best to coax this inexperienced body of mine into understanding.
I had no sense of progress, no sense of right or wrong in doing this. When all was said and done, Uzumaki Naruto was not a particularly intelligent man. I could be sharp, I could be clutch, but parsing the intricacies of the chakra system that wound through all of creation was an act of theoretical bullshitting I wouldn't even bother attempting. Instead, I remembered my past self, remembered the feel of the yang that I had lost, and I poked and prodded at what yang I had now and tried to make it feel the same.
In other words, I was attempting to trick my body, and thus nature, into thinking that I was already a sage. No, it didn't make sense to me either.
But if nothing else it was kind of relaxing, and it helped keep me focused. Both were good things, especially considering what today was. Today, of course, being the start of one of a handful of events that had been carved so deeply into my memory that years later I still remembered everything that was coming, all the way down to the way the bile would taste in my throat as I threw my teammates over my shoulders and fled from the battle that would ultimately claim Hatake Kakashi's life.
Today was the day Team 7 took our first C-rank mission. It was the beginning of the trip that had laid the foundation for my relationship with Sasuke. It was the beginning of my first and second introductions to my fellow jinchuriki. It was the beginning of the end for the sensei that I never got the chance to really know.
Or it had been, anyway. This time, Team 7 would make it back to Konoha as a complete team. This time, I resolved, it was going to be slightly different.
And by slightly, I meant completely.
By the time Sasuke finally decided to show up, I'd already twisted my chakra coils into a state of being that was completely different from what they had been earlier that morning. She leaned against my dresser tree, and I didn't need to be a sage to feel the expectant look she leveled at me.
I began the disorienting process of pulling myself free of the innermost workings of my chakra, navigating through grasping roots of tenketsu and star-like clusters of chakra surrounding my internal organs. I came back to the outside world with a sharp gasp of cool air and the taste of sap in my mouth, eyes flickering open and gradually adjusting to the mix of greens and browns that was so different from the shining spectrum of light pulsing away within me.
I shook myself free from my stupor and sat up, twisting left and right and earning myself a few satisfying pops in my back for the effort. Then I reached down and wrapped my fingers around the branch beneath me. I arched my back and yawned explosively for the benefit of my watching teammate, and through the hand holding the branch I urged my chakra to flow.
A funny little fluttering sensation flowed down my arm, like the feeling you get in your stomach during an unexpected free fall. I narrowed my eyes, adjusting the flow of my chakra to match the new layout of my coils, until a few seconds later I got the desired result and my hand stuck to the branch. Satisfied, I swung myself down to Sasuke.
There was a reason shinobi generally didn't go around restructuring the chakra coils that the Rikudou Sennin had so graciously bestowed upon them. Generally, in this case, really meaning never. It was sort of impossible if you didn't have a grasp of chakra on the level of a sensor, or, say, an Uzumaki. It didn't have any noticeable benefits most of the time- the only reason I was doing it was because I already knew good things would happen if I could force my chakra to flow a certain way. Finally, it was dangerous. Something that might look like the slightest of tweaks to the untrained eye might result in losing years upon years of hard won chakra control, never to be returned.
Good for me that my idiot thirteen year-old self didn't have any chakra control to lose, and even better that my intimate sense for chakra had not been lost in the transmigration.
"What are you thinking about?" Sasuke asked, and I blinked. A couple slaps to my cheeks later and I was firmly back in the land of the living.
Meditating wasn't too bad by itself, but it was a real pain in the ass pulling myself from my sagely musings afterwards.
"Forgot to go home last night," I said, sort of honestly. "Wondering if my plants are gonna be okay."
"Out pranking again, hm?" Her disdain encircled me like a warm embrace, and I couldn't help but take a moment to appreciate it. No matter how much it made my teeth grind, it was better than the last emotion I had seen on her beautiful, infuriating, amazing face. Always better than the horror and the tears that had broken my heart into so many aching pieces.
Always.
"Not this time!" I declared, jabbing a thumb grandly at myself. "I was working on a kickass new jutsu all night."
"Were you?" She asked, glancing at me in mixed surprise and consideration. There was a glint in her expression, the first hint of an excitement that had been a constant presence in our later dealings with each other.
Even now, Sasuke loved a good fight.
"Um!" I nodded, and grinned cheekily at the way she tilted her head just so, inviting me to continue. "Hey, Sakura!"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed dangerously as I turned to greet our third teammate, but I didn't pay it too much attention. Things had always been, ah, tense between my teammates, even this far back. If all went well, though, there wouldn't be any reason for things to completely fall apart like they did the last time around. This much, at least, I was confident I could fix.
Sasuke and Sakura were going to be friends if it was the last god damn thing I did.
"Uh, morning," Sakura hesitantly returned my greeting. Since my return to my younger self, she always seemed to be caught off guard around me. She didn't know how to treat an Uzumaki Naruto that just wanted to be her friend, it seemed. Man, but I didn't have a single clue back then, did I?
"Say good morning, Sasuke," I hissed theatrically, nudging the girl beside me. Her expression somehow became even more poisonous at that, and she turned her head away from both of us with a huff that I only caught because I was listening for it.
Heh. She's too cute.
"So what do you guys think today will be? Training, D-ranks, and more training? Or D-ranks, training, and more D-ranks?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.
All told, it's been a pretty dull second chance at life so far. It was to be expected, I guess. I've mostly been preparing myself for today, and doing my best to kick start the relationships that had brought me back here in the first place.
Something tells me things are going to be changing pretty soon, though.
"Tell me next time," Sasuke suddenly said, looking at me from the corner of her eye. "When you're going to be training by yourself. I'll join you."
Yeah, I could already tell how that would go. I didn't have a whole lot of power to hold back right now, almost nothing compared to the kind of crazy shit I was used to throwing around, but I still hadn't been giving it my all during team training. Mostly because I didn't trust myself not to hurt one of my teammates with my still faulty control. My solo training sessions were my only opportunity to claw my way back to competence, and I knew for a fact that Sasuke would react less than well to me suddenly whipping out the rasengan, no matter how incomplete my grasp over it now was in comparison to what it had been.
Still. It made me smile, because it was a sign that she was starting to care again. Even if the Sasuke I had known before had never stopped caring, not really, it had certainly felt like it at the time. And even if this new, old Sasuke only really cared about my secret kickass jutsu, at least she cared.
It looked like I was making some progress after all.
I wasn't making any progress at all.
It's been two weeks, four days, five hours, and approximately thirty-eight minutes since the last time I've held the man I love in my arms, and even longer since I've done so without having to worry about his impending death. If I had any sanity left to lose, it would surely be slipping through my fingers at this point. Alas. Rather than lose any nonexistent positives of my psyche, I've been gaining negatives at an even greater pace than usual. Sleep, in particular, has become a gruesome affair, to the point that I've decided to forgo it altogether.
The cause and subject of my most recent night terrors whistles a jaunty little tune, fingers threaded through his jagged blond hair as we follow Hatake to the Hokage Tower. It's still slightly damp, and I suddenly wonder when the last time we bathed together was. Too long. Far too long. I stamp down on a sudden rush of longing, inwardly lamenting that his hands should be bunched in my hair, just like mine should be in his.
It's been two weeks, four days, five hours, and approximately thirty-nine minutes, and I've realized that my current plan is not going to work. Shaping Naruto in the man that I know him to be is all well and good, but upon reflection, it had been our separation as loyal shinobi and missing nin that had ironically brought us together as man and woman.
That wouldn't be an option this time around. There were several, equally important reasons for this, ranging from my new understanding of the Uchiha Massacre to my conversation with the Rikudou Sennin. The most pressing of these was, of course, that Naruto wouldn't see me that way for several years to come if I walked the same path as before.
I am not a patient woman. Two weeks, four days, five hours, and approximately forty-one minutes was already dangerously close to my limit. And so, because I could not make him love me like I did before, and subtly opening myself up to him as a teammate and a sparring partner was not working nearly as well as I remembered, I was going to have to adjust my tactics.
I was going to have to make Naruto love me the traditional way. May Amaterasu cleanse my sinful soul.
"Actually, Kakashi, I was wondering if your team would be up to a C-rank mission today."
I blinked, realizing that we had reached the mission distribution center at some point during my sour musings. That was concerning. Situational awareness was something I had never bothered to improve, or even maintain, after keeping my fully matured sharingan active at all times became an option. That would have to change. Or I would have to get my sight back. Whichever came first.
"A C-rank, hm?" Kakashi pondered, tapping his pornographic book to his chin in thought. An unreadable brown eye focused on me for the briefest of moments, and I cocked an eyebrow. Do you really need to ask?
He quirked a little smile beneath his mask, attention sliding from me to Sakura. The other kunoichi was staring at the Hokage with an expression that was half jubilation and half anxiety. It made her look constipated, in my unbiased opinion. Kakashi turned his attention away from her when it became clear she didn't yet have an opinion to give, and locked eyes with Naruto.
Naruto... was smiling. Not grinning, dancing, screaming at the top of his lungs, or any other irritating alternative. He was just standing there, arms held loosely at his sides, looking up at Kakashi with a smile that made my heart race.
It's a smile I've seen before. A smile that I've seen bring women and enemy shinobi to their knees with little regard as to which was which, or which was both. It was a simple thing, a small parting of the lips, a flash of too-sharp canines. It made his eyes dance like lightning, deadlier than any raiton jutsu I knew.
I liked that smile. I liked it a lot.
"Let's do it."
Hnnnn.
"Well, if you're sure!" Kakashi said happily, as if Naruto's opinion was the only deciding factor in his decision. For all I knew, it was. I never did find out how much of his carefree attitude was an act before his violent death. "How may we serve, Hokage-sama?"
"Your client is a merchant from Yu no Kuni. He's finished his business with Konoha for the year and would like you to escort him back home, in case he runs into any unsavory characters during the trip. Ryoko, if you could fetch Kahaya-san?" The secretary standing dutifully by the mission desk hurried out of the room, and a few minutes after the Hokage finished up with the pre-mission pleasantries she returned with a portly old man in tow.
"Good morning, Hokage-sama! A pleasure, as always," Kahaya-san boomed, bowing as low as his gut would allow him. The merchant from Hot Water was dressed in well worn traveling clothes that matched his thinning gray hair, and he held himself with the ease of a civilian that knew they were at the mercy of every single shinobi in the room and had stopped caring long ago.
He was utterly forgettable, as was his mission. This part of our trip was unimportant. The real challenge would come later.
While Kakashi introduced us to the client and vice versa, I returned my attention to what was important. Namely, recapturing Naruto's heart. My quest to improve the younger, infinitely more irritating version of my beloved fool wasn't going as poorly as I liked to make it out to be, in all honesty. He had yet to do anything truly unacceptable- in fact, aside from the general Narutoisms that would be a part of him no matter what I did, he hadn't done anything annoying. It was somewhat frustrating that all it took was me treating him vaguely like an equal to radically change his demeanor- it made me wish I had done so sooner, the first time around.
Unfortunately, we weren't getting anywhere romantically. Which meant we also weren't getting anywhere physically. It's been so long since I've made him bleed. When was the last time I drove my cold steel through him? When was the last time he drove his wood into me?
Too long, on both accounts. Far too long.
Solutions, solutions. Traditional interactions as teammates has worked thus far in improving our interactions with one another. Perhaps a traditional romance will work much the same? His attraction to Sakura certainly seemed traditional enough, from what little I can remember of it before we drove it into the dirt with our own frenzied relationship.
Twelve year old Naruto preferred girls that wore perfume, dressed nicely, and had charming personalities. Eventually, he would come to his senses and prefer women that were me. Until then, I could play along.
"Alright, team, we'll meet at the northern gate in one hour. Pack carefully, and don't forget your rations!" Rations, hm?
I knew just where to start.
"You made me... a bento?" Naruto stared at me with terrified eyes, as if the box of food I held in my hands was an exploding tag strapped to his littlest Uzumaki, and I was only a hand seal away from setting it off.
Mm, that had been a good night.
"Yes," I replied evenly, not quite sure what to do now that I had prepared the food and presented it to him. My knowledge of traditional courtship was, admittedly, a bit lacking. Perhaps I wasn't being clear enough. "I thought you might like something more appetizing than field rations while we're away from Konoha."
Naruto took a half step backwards, and in my peripheral vision I noted Sakura watching us with complete bewilderment. Kakashi's expression was obscured by his book, but I got the feeling he was giggling more than he usually did. Was I still missing something? What did that Hyuuga bitch always do when she wanted to give him something?
"Please accept it," I murmured, turning my head demurely away from him.
There was a beat of silence. Even the chunin guarding the gates leaned forward in their booth to watch the spectacle. Naruto took a deep breath.
"Kai."
I very carefully did not stab him.
He took the bento, then, grinning sheepishly. He still looked a little shaken up, but I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything different. I had seen for myself how cold the rest of the village was to him- for all I knew, this was the first real gift he had ever received, small as it was. And wasn't that a depressing thought.
"Thanks, Sasuke," he said, holding the box about a foot away from his person. What would the Hyuuga do now?
I tapped my fingers together, averting my gaze once again. Amaterasu save me, I hated this already. How could that girl ever claim to have feelings for Naruto when she never looked at him? "I hope you like it," I said nonetheless.
"Sasuke?" Sakura squeaked. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," I replied, a moment too late realizing that the Hyuuga never spoke so coldly. Ah, well. I didn't actually want to be Hyuuga Hinata. Just the thought of it made me feel dirty. And weak. And pathetic.
"So, uh, did you get Sakura one, or did you want us to share...?"
"No," I snapped. That was the very nearly the last thing I wanted, just below not murdering Uchiha Madara. "It's for you." After a pause, I added. "For the lunch you bought me, before."
Uneasy silence settled amongst our team and the chunin who had nothing better to do. Our client had yet to arrive, which meant this was the perfect time for Naruto to eat the bento and realize what a good cook I am. Not that I had ever really cooked for him in the past, or had any plans to do so on a regular basis in the future. Regardless.
Eventually, he got the hint. "O-oh! Right!" He popped the bento open, his mouth falling open ever so slightly at its contents. I had considered shaping the rice balls into hearts or his face, but had dismissed the former as being too obvious and the latter as being a little sad. Instead, I had made one in the image of the Uzumaki spiral crest, and the other in the shape of an uchiwa. Simple and effective.
"It looks great," he offered. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, um... bottoms up-"
"Kakashi-san!" Kahaya bellowed, and Naruto slammed the bento shut with a sigh of relief. I crossed my arms over my chest, just barely restraining the urge to put my chokuto between the old man's eyes as he came huffing and puffing up to us. "I'm terribly sorry for the delay! I got caught up in some last minute goodbyes, and you know how those are-"
"Not a problem, Kahaya-san," Kakashi said, pocketing his book and giving me an incredibly amused look. "Shall we?" I scowled.
Next time.
"Kakashi-sensei, where exactly are we going in Yu no Kuni?" Sakura asked some time later, when the sun had long since passed its apex and settled into its descent.
"A little resort village called Haru just off of Yugakure," Kakashi supplied, shielding his eye with his book and glancing up at the sky. "It'll take us a few days to get there at this pace, so we'll turn in for the night once we reach the next town."
"Fan- fantastic idea," Kahaya wheezed, leaning heavily on his walking stick and doing his best not to have a heart attack. "I support it one hundred percent!"
"Is the town close?" Sakura asked hopefully, wiping the sweat from her massive brow. All things considered, it was a hellishly hot day. Even the encroaching evening did little for Hi no Kuni's infamous humidity.
Kakashi nodded. "Very close. Only three or four more hours if I remember correctly." He tilted his head, humming thoughtfully. "Although, that was at a jonin's pace, come to think of it." Sakura groaned miserably, and Naruto made a disgusted noise low in his throat, swinging his backpack around and rifling through it.
A few seconds later I realized what he was looking for and very casually reached into my own pack, pulling out my canteen and taking a slow, luxurious pull from it. I caressed the lip of it with my tongue, drinking deeply and pulling it out of my mouth with a soft pop. A few moments later Naruto cursed, throwing his pack back over his shoulder.
"Thirsty?"
Naruto looked to me, then my canteen, and swallowed. "Little bit."
"Take the rest," I said generously, offering him the bottle. I felt Kakashi's scrutiny on me, but didn't pay it any heed. He wouldn't interfere, and if he did, I'd end him.
Naruto's eyes lit up. "You sure?" he asked, nearly vibrating with the desire to snatch the water from my hand. I hummed my assent, tossing it to him, and he wasted no time guzzling it down.
I waited until he was finished. He sighed contentedly, wiping a bit of moisture from where it had run tantalizingly down his chin and throat, and offered the canteen back to me. I turned away from him, to his confusion, and channeled Hyuuga Hinata to the best of my ability as I buried my face in my hands.
"An indirect kiss," I whispered, wishing I knew how to blush on command.
Kakashi skillfully turned a snort into a polite cough, Sakura gaped, and Naruto did his best to choke on air.
"What the fuck, Sasuke?"
Hn. Next time.
The town we stopped for the night at, as well as the hotel Kakashi decided on, were exactly as I remembered them to be. Quaint, spacious, and with far too many available places to stay. Kahaya was given a room of his own, being that he was the one paying, while Kakashi and Naruto took another, leaving me with Sakura. Too much space to force us all into one room, but not spacious enough to get me away from Sakura. Unfortunate.
I would have very little time to accomplish the next stage of my plan, for this younger body of mine remained a genin's frame, for all my S-class knowledge, and Kakashi was a seasoned jonin. I wasn't confident enough in my current infiltration skills to risk sneaking into his room and extracting Naruto. I would have to make what time I had count.
And so it was that I found myself bathing in the men's hot springs, having cleared it out of any and all inhabitants with a few carefully placed words and even more carefully placed kunai.
I squeezed the sponge the hotel staff had provided in my room, along with various other toiletries, and gently ran it between my thighs. It slid down to the tips of my toes, leaving suds in its wake, and then ghosted back up my pale white skin on its way to my neck. I cleansed the sweat and grime from my body with all the grace of a noblewoman, one stroke at a time, humming all the while to a song that one of my aunts used to sing to me before Itachi brutally murdered her.
When I was covered head to toe in soap and shampoo, well and truly clean, I rinsed it all away with a few buckets of water. Then I listened intently, and when I heard nothing, picked the sponge back up and started washing again.
I was on my third cycle of scrubbing when I heard the door to the changing room open with a sharp rap. I smiled slowly, rising from my stool and stretching languidly, naked as the day I was born. The door to the hot springs slid open, and I heard a sharp intake of breath from a familiar set of lungs. I smiled even wider and bent at the waist to grab my most recent bucket of water.
"Hnngh."
"Naruto," I said, injecting as much surprise and indignation as possible into the name. It was difficult, but the fact that he couldn't see my devious smile helped me somewhat. "This is the women's bath, you know."
I emptied the bucket over my head, shaking the moisture out of my air and perhaps wiggling my hips ever so slightly.
"The hell it is," Naruto bit out, far more indignantly than I had managed. That's fine. I like angry Naruto more than flustered Naruto anyway. Not much, but enough to measure.
I turned just enough to give him a wide-eyed look. "I picked the wrong one?" Naruto crossed his arms over his bare chest- Mmm- unamused. "I see," I said softly.
I had considered channeling the Hyuuga again for this one, but had dismissed the situation as being too extreme for such a persona. Stammering like one of Orochimaru's lackies or fainting dead away would do nothing for me. I had also considered channeling Sakura. Don't ask me why.
In the end, I decided on a middle of the road approach.
I bent down once again, picked the sponge up, and gestured to my stool. "Would you like me to wash your back?"
Naruto walked back into the changing room without another word.
Damn it. Next time.