Sakura stretched her arms high above her head and yawned wide enough to pop the right side of her jaw. After a full day of walking up and down the trunk of a tree while Sasuke and Naruto both struggled to catch up to what she had accomplished the first try, Sakura found herself exhausted but too sore to sleep well. She swiped at the moisture that had gathered in her eyes from her intake of oxygen and pried her eyes back open.
"Are we makin' ya work too hard, Sakura-chan?" She could hear the wide grin in the voice without even looking at the redhead who had issued the taunt.
But she stuck her tongue out childishly at Kaeru anyway.
"Well, climbing trees all day is tiring," she protested with a smile from her perch sitting on a large wooden crate. She wasn't sure what it held, but it made for a good vantage point.
Kaeru flashed her a final grin before he turned away with a long plank balanced on one shoulder. Two other figures, identical to her teammate down to the fingerless gloves he often wore, were helping two of the bridge workers to lift a wooden slate of square stone blocks.
"Are you sure it's all right for you to be here, Sakura-chan?" Tazuna interjected.
Sakura briefly wondered if she should protest everyone insisting on calling her Sakura-chan. Maybe it had started with Naruto's stupid belief that if he called her in such a familiar manner, she would actually agree to go on a date with him. Then his cousin picked up the habit; although Sakura had to admit that it sounded a little less annoying coming from someone several years older than her.
"It's find, Tazuna-san," she replied happily. "Kakashi-sensei said that since I've already mastered the training we're doing, I should come here with Kaeru-kun to protect you."
"What about the other two boys?" Tazuna frowned beneath his wide hat.
"Still training," Kaeru grunted as he tossed the wooden plank down to the bare, half-completed bridge near the end that abruptly dropped off into the foggy water below.
"But Kakashi said that assassin was still alive," protested the bridge builder.
"Zabuza's not gonna attack yet," Kaeru stated firmly, as if that ended the argument then and there.
He turned back to his audience and tugged at his gloves, securing them against his palms.
"Besides, I got a clone with Naruto and Sasuke, and Kakashi's still at the house." He grinned widely again. "The only trouble they're gonna get into is with each other."
Sakura smiled back at him as he stooped to pick up another board, transferring it to the unfinished end of the bridge. Kaeru was always friendly to her. She was a little concerned at his eagerness to work so hard so soon after the battle, especially when Kakashi-sensei was still limping around on crutches. But Kaeru had assured her several times that his injuries weren't nearly as bad as the jounin's. And except for that brief moment of pain in Tsunami's kitchen, Sakura hadn't seen any lingering effects of his wounds.
A timid man in a wide hat much like Tazuna's distracted Sakura when he approached the old man.
"Tazuna-san, can I talk to you?" the man inquired quietly. His skin looked weathered in a way that years of living near salt water and sea winds could always accomplish, and deep lines ran along the edges of his eyes, making him look perpetually tired.
"Yeah, Giichi." Tazuna slapped the younger man on the shoulder happily.
Giichi didn't seem to return Tazuna's upbeat sentiment. He glanced at his feet and swallowed hard with Sakura and Kaeru looking on curiously.
"Tazuna, have you considered that you should stop building this bridge?" Giichi questioned with a sense of deadened finality.
"What?" snapped Tazuna in a suddenly low tone.
Sakura's eyes were quick enough to catch Giichi's flinch at the demand for explanation. She noticed that Kaeru had frozen as well with a long plank of wood on one shoulder and his eyes firmly fixed on Giichi.
"I know I started working on this bridge with you," Giichi started to explain, "and we've been close for a long time. You know I want to help you, but Gatou will notice us soon. This is pointless if you lose your life over it."
Tazuna's face fell into a quiet kind of solemnity. Sakura suddenly wondered if the old man was considering how close he came to walking back to his home alone after lying to shinobi. If Kakashi-sensei had opted to take their team back to Konoha, there would have been no one left on the road to protect Tazuna from Zabuzu's attack.
"I can't do that," Tazuna answered with his eyes downcast. "This bridge is our bridge. This is the bridge we started building together, believing it would bring resources into our super poor country."
"But if we lose our lives—" shouted Giichi, determined to get in one more protest.
"That's enough," Tazuna announced in a much louder voice than he had been using moments before. "Let's stop for lunch."
Tazuna turned his back to the suddenly silent Giichi and motioned Kaeru to put down his load.
"Giichi," the older man began in a quiet tone, "you don't have to come back tomorrow."
Sakura slowly lowered herself from her perch on top of the crate, keeping her eyes on Giichi's shocked look for a moment. A slight popping sound she had come to recognize ever since being placed on Team Seven made Sakura look to where Kaeru's two clones were reduced to a couple pillars of smoke. Kaeru himself knelt on the bride and let down the plank in his arms gently.
"Your kid's got quite a legacy, old man," muttered the redhead without looking at his audience. "You're brave enough to stand up to Gatou."
Sakura glanced at Tazuna's surprisingly lack of reaction—other than a simple lift of his shoulders—before she looked back at Kaeru. But Kaeru didn't seem to expect a reaction or a response. He just straightened into a stand and watched the foggy expanse of sea that hid the mainland of Hi no Kuni from view.
"Kaeru-kun?" Sakura questioned gently.
Kaeru looked over his shoulder quickly and flashed the girl a reassuring grin. It was so hard to tell what Kaeru was thinking most of the time. In fact—now that Sakura thought about it—he talked about his past about as much as Sasuke-kun did. But the difference was that Kaeru didn't hesitate to reassure his friends that he was all right. Kaeru turned and followed Tazuna off the bridge slowly as all the other workers slowly dissipated, making their way home for lunch before work on the bridge would start once again.
Kaeru had forgotten how bad Nami no Kuni really was under Gatou. He remembered, of course, that Gatou had made everyone's lives miserable, especially Tazuna's family. But he hadn't really expected that worker to up and quit his work on the bridge when it was their greatest hope. He hadn't expected the cold, dead look on the adults as he walked with Tazuna and Sakura through the village. His head turned to follow a young man who passed them, holding a hand-written sign: Will work for food. Briefly, Kaeru wondered if he should suggest to Tazuna that the kid—hardly older than Kaeru—should be Giichi's replacement on the bridge.
Tazuna dully announced that he had to stop at the market to bring home some more food for Tsunami and the family. With his hands shoved in his pockets, Kaeru watched the man pick over the meager choices on display in the store. There was rice, as always, but barely any fruit and only the most common vegetables. The store was even almost out of miso.
"Pervert!"
A sudden high scream jerked Kaeru's head around just in time to see Sakura slam her foot into a middle-aged man's face. Despite feeling very sorry for the recipient of Sakura's temper, the edges of Kaeru's mouth twitched with the task of repressing his smile.
"Sakura-chan, that guy wasn't a pervert," he announced when the man fled the vengeful kunoichi.
"He was trying to grab me!" Sakura's death glare—which had always been much hotter than Sasuke's—turned full-force onto Kaeru.
"He was aiming for your bag," explained Kaeru as Tazuna paid for his small bag of groceries. "He's a pickpocket. Probably trying to get some money for food."
Sakura's frown suddenly melted into a shocked look of comprehension.
"Oh," she murmured quietly.
Kaeru fell silent and followed Tazuna out of the store with Sakura trailing behind, still looking downcast. Kaeru glanced back at her occasionally as the trio headed down the main street on their way out of town. He forgot sometimes that none of his current teammates had seen the things he had. He was so used to looking to Sakura for rationale or even for one sole person who believed that things could still work out according to her teammate's promises because her friend would never go back on his word. Even before the last battle with Kisame had inflicted wounds that no one but the late Godaime Hokage could heal, Sakura had believed that her last teammate would find a way. He would bring Konoha back to what it was because it was his home.
"Kaeru-kun."
Sakura's call quickly brought Kaeru back out of memories of a red dress stained with a darker red that had never looked right on her. He lifted his head enough to look back at her while still trying to shake off the feeling that she looked far too young.
"Would you help me with my offense?" pleaded the cherry blossom with her fingers tightening into each other.
"Huh?"
Kaeru frowned and wondered for a moment why Sakura was so worried when she had already completed Kakashi's training. Then the vocabulary popped back into his mind. Offense.
"Oh, I'm sorry about what I said, Sakura." Kaeru rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I didn't mean to . . . I know you're strong, Sakura-chan. I just thought you could be stronger than that."
Hell, he knew that Sakura could be stronger than that. But he also knew that he couldn't teach her what she was best at. He was shit at medical jutsu.
"You got great chakra control, Sakura-chan. Even better than Sasuke and Naruto," he explained, knowing she would connect that into the training Kakashi had explained. So, she knew it wasn't just Kaeru saying it to make her feel better. "Girls usually do. Might be why they make great iryo-nin."
"Medical-nin?" Sakura repeated.
Kaeru nodded, trying not to look too excited that she had picked up the topic of interest.
"In—" he began then suddenly stopped in realization that he wasn't supposedly from his home village anymore. Well, easy to fix. "In Whirlpool, every three-man team was assigned an iryo-nin." That had been Tsunade's idea, and the reason that both Ino and Hinata learned so many medical techniques in addition to their own family jutsu. "At least, they were supposed to; we ran short sometimes. But it helped teams in the field stay alive."
They were out of town by now, walking along the tree-lined dirt road to Tazuna's house. Kaeru scanned the forest around him, just in case. Zabuza would still be out of commission, but Haku most definitely was not. Kaeru remembered that the boy didn't actually show up until morning, not that he could remember which morning. Maybe Kaeru could find him before that. Haku and Naruto really could've become friends, and dang if Naruto couldn't use a few more for himself.
"Kaeru-kun?" Sakura called again. "Were you ever a sensei?"
The question took Kaeru by surprise, and he had to blink several times before he could form an answer.
"No," he finally said shortly. "There was this kid that used to follow me around, but—"
His blue eyes fell to the ground at the memory of Konohamaru. The stupid kid had stood up to Pein's demand that Konoha release Uzumaki Naruto, the last of the jinchuuriki, to Akatsuki. Kaeru would've been a terrible sensei. He hadn't been in time to save Konohamaru, but Kakashi had died protecting his students, just another way he had followed his longtime rival.
"He's going to kill himself like this," Sakura murmured worriedly, pushing her cropped hair away from her face.
"How many did he say he was going to do?" Ino inquired from beside her.
"One thousand five hundred one-handed push-ups if Gai-sensei didn't make it." Sakura's tone dropped at the mention of Konoha's Green Beast.
Ino paused and glanced into the hospital's small courtyard. It was still a bit trashed from Akatsuki's attack, and repairs were going on around them while the med-nin tried to save everyone they could. But with Tsunade herself injured, Sakura, Ino, and the others were fighting an uphill battle. Not to mention trying to take care of stubborn patients like Rock Lee who was currently on push-up number one hundred and twenty-seven.
"Shouldn't we stop him?" Ino turned in desperation to where Neji sat in a chair, crutches beside him and a cast encasing his right leg from ankle to thigh.
"You won't be able to," Neji repled blandly.
Sakura opened her mouth to suggest something else when a bright figure nudged his way past her and into the courtyard.
"Naruto, what are you doing?" she demanded. "You're not recovered yet."
Naruto ignored Sakura's protests and approached the sweating, trembling Lee. Without a word, Naruto crouched down and spread himself beside Lee, who paused in his exercise long enough to gaze solemnly at his friend.
"Naruto-kun, please do not try to deter me," he commanded breathlessly. "I have sworn that I would perform fifteen hundred push-ups with one hand if my beloved sensei was unable to recover from his injuries. I must complete this task, and you shall not—"
"One hundred twenty-eight," murmured Naruto, pushing his body off the ground with his left hand while he kept his broken right arm tucked into his chest.
"Naruto-kun?" Lee frowned and watched Naruto repeat the performance.
"One hundred twenty-nine."
Sakura's mouth hung open in the midst of a silent protest.
"Great, now we got two stubborn idiots," grumbled Ino. Her caustic tone was betrayed by the small crack in her voice. "Sakura, go talk to him."
Sakura swallowed hard and shook her head, dislodging the tears that had gathered in her eyes.
"Naruto blames himself," she whispered. Any louder and her voice might crack as well. "He won't stop until he counts all of them."
"One hundred thirty-one," the two injured ninja called out in chorus. Each determined to make it to the end, one to honor his sensei and one to pay for the man's death.
"Do you have any scrolls on medical jutsu, Kaeru-kun?" inquired Sakura curiously.
Kaeru swallowed and shook his head quickly, trying to make his body forget about the task of performing one thousand three hundred and seventy-three push-ups in one day.
"Eh?" He frowned confusedly at the young kunoichi walking beside him.
"Scrolls," Sakura repeated. "From Whirlpool?"
Now, that was an interesting thought. Wondering what kind of medical jutsu his mother's country could have had lightened Kaeru's thoughts enough to give Sakura a half-smile that turned only slightly reluctant.
"Sorry, Sakura-chan," Kaeru apologized honestly. "Most everything I had before got burned before I left. Iruka-sensei might have some basics you can look at when we get back to Konoha."
"I suppose the other two are going to be super hungry from working so hard," muttered Tazuna, neatly interrupting all ninja shop-talk once again.
"Actually, I doubt they'll be coming." Kaeru's half-smile turned into a grin. Naruto and Sasuke were both far too competitive to stop in the midst of trying to beat each other just to eat. Naruto would forget all about it in his single-minded approach to training, and Sasuke would never quite before the dead last did.
"But they need to eat," Sakura protested in concern.
"Don't worry." Kaeru just shrugged. "Maybe my clone can convince them to come in. But if they collapse, they'll just get dragged home, anyway."
Sasuke launched himself away from the trunk of the tree as soon as he felt himself slipping and thrust one hand in front of him to catch the bark with his kunai. He used his momentum to flip backwards, arching his back in a smooth movement to end up landing on his feet, one yard away from the tree that held his slash marks up along the trunk. Glancing to his left, Sasuke saw that Naruto had progressed at least as far as he had.
"Keep this up, and we'll need two more clones just to hoist you two up the tree."
Sasuke ground his teeth together and glared at the interruption. But the redheaded boy just leaned against the tree at his back with his arms crossed behind his head without concern, taking in the marks on both trees. Kakashi had sent Sakura with Tazuna for the day, with the intention of using Kaeru to watch Naruto and Sasuke in the forest, just in case Kaeru prediction of another assassin taking Zabuza's place came true. But Kaeru had the unusual, annoying talent of being in two places at once. So, Kaeru and Sakura both went into town to guard Tazuna while one kage bushin remained with the other two genin.
Sasuke didn't know that much about Kage Bushin no Jutsu. It was a kinjutsu and thus not taught in any of the Academy classes other than its mention as a highly dangerous jutsu because of the amount of chakra needed as well as something called sensory overload. But Kaeru's shadow clone had remained with them all day, and, despite its strange speech patterns, it didn't show any signs of fading or becoming weaker.
"How long did it take you to get this, Kaeru-nii?" Naruto panted and wiped his brow with the back of his arm.
"Longer than you," was the redhead's amused answer. He smiled then glanced over at Sasuke.
Defiantly, the Uchiha set his eyes back on his goal and ran towards the tree again.
"You need some help?" Kaeru rose to his feet as Sasuke fell back down to earth, this time landing somewhat less gracefully on one knee.
"No," he answered shortly.
"Fine, then." Kaeru simply shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned his back against the tree again.
Sasuke could still sense Kaeru's calm, blue gaze on his back. Pressing his jaws together firmly, Sasuke shoved the feeling out of his mind. He had to concentrate on this training. He had to get stronger. Staring at the tree in front of him, Sasuke darted forward, all the while feeling a prickling sensation at the back of his neck that told him he was being watched. From the corner of his eye, he could see Naruto charge at his tree at the same time. Sasuke pumped an additional burst of chakra to his legs. He was not going to be outdone by the dobe!
Sasuke felt his feet shoot off from the trunk almost immediately, as if he and the tree were opposite ends of a magnet that repelled each other. He lost his grip so quickly that he didn't have time to twist his body into a flip so that he could actually land on his feet. The most he could do was try to right himself in midair. Managing to get his feet under him was one thing, but balancing seemed to be out of his reach. Sasuke landed hard on his heels and started falling backwards. He could already predict what would happen: he was about to fall flat on his ass. But before he could tumble into such an embarrassing position, he felt a strong hand at his back, tipping him back into a standing position.
"You're pushing it too hard," Kaeru's voice came from behind him.
Sasuke jerked away from the touch and spun around to glare at the older genin.
"I don't need your help," he bit back. This was his struggle, his quest, his burden to bear. No one else could understand his ambition.
Kaeru just frowned at the dark-haired boy.
"Do you want to get this or not?" demanded the redhead hotly. He calmed quickly and folded his arms across his chest. "You're thinking about it too much. When you walk and talk at the same time, you don't need to think about the walking, ne? You just put one foot in front of the other."
Kaeru took Sasuke by the shoulder and turned him around to face the scratched up tree.
"Don't think about this," he ordered, more quietly. "Just concentrate on how much chakra you're expelling. Always an equal amount from the soles of your feet."
Sasuke's anger slid away slowly as he stared at the tree. He knew he needed to be calm to attempt this kind of chakra control, but Itachi was always at the forefront of his mind. He needed to be strong, strong enough to avenge his family by killing the madman responsible for their deaths. But, a small part of Sasuke responded to Kaeru's calm instructions. Breathing deeply, the young Uchiha tightened his grip on the kunai in his hand and felt the familiar, tingling warmth that signaled his chakra traveling through his body. Suddenly, he ran.
For a moment, Sasuke forgot about his movements, only concentrating on the warm feeling spreading through his feet. He ignored the sense of gravity pulling at him as he flew up the tree parallel to the ground. He barely registered his previous mark as he passed it and kept running, focused only on the tree and his own chakra. When he could feel his control slipping, Sasuke scratched a line in the trunk and flipped backwards. He sailed to the ground and landed easily, if not heavily, on his feet, caught unnecessarily by a pair of hands on his shoulders.
"See, that was better."
Sasuke glanced behind him to see Kaeru beaming proudly at the tree before he turned his blue eyes to Sasuke.
"Hn," Sasuke grunted uncomfortably.
"You're welcome, bastard." Kaeru's smile remained on his face as if glued on, and he backed away from the boy. Sasuke turned away from his onetime instructor, ignoring a feeling that he hadn't felt in nearly six years growing in the pit of his stomach.
"Aniki, will you teach me to throw shuriken today?"
Sasuke swallowed back his memories of Itachi and tried to concentrate on the tree again. Surreptitiously, he glanced again at Kaeru. The clone was laughing happily at something Naruto had done or said, his head thrown back and his mouth open wide. Sasuke frowned. Kaeru was, at most, a distant relative of Naruto's who had suddenly appeared in Konoha. That didn't explain why Kaeru sometimes treated him exactly the same way he treated Naruto: like a little brother he was passing his knowledge on to.
Naruto shoveled the last of the steamed rice into his mouth and swallowed what he could, but his cheeks still puffed out with the excess food. He glared across the table at Sasuke, satisfied that the bastard was still inhaling his bowl. The two had been eating constantly throughout supper while Tazuna, Tsunami, and Inari looked on. Well, Naruto thought Inari was looking, but it was hard to tell with that kid. The important thing was that Sasuke was falling behind.
With his cheeks still full of food, Naruto quickly held up his empty bowl to demand another helping. Suddenly, another hand grabbed his wrist firmly and forced the bowl back down to the table. Naruto glared at Kaeru, who was seated beside him propping his chin on his fist while his elbow balanced on the table.
"You don't get more, gaki," Kaeru ordered firmly.
"I need more food," protested Naruto, mouth still full. He ignored the disgusted look that Sakura-chan shot his way as well as Kakashi-sensei's amused curve of his bare eye.
"Gaki," Kaeru called, a warning without even saying his name.
"I need to get stronger." Naruto just kept glaring. His cousin was going to make him lose to Sasuke!
"Oi." Kaeru lifted his head from its perch on his fist and leaned close to Naruto's stuffed face. "Swallow."
Naruto shifted the masses of food stuffed in each of his cheeks and forced it down his throat. As soon as his mouth was empty, he went back to glaring at Kaeru defiantly. Then, he found it suddenly difficult to keep up such a serious expression.
"Urglk," Naruto grunted and tried to tuck his head closer to his chest in an effort to shrink his stomach back to its regular size. Kaeru released the boy's wrist and leaned back to observe.
"Told ya, gaki."
Naruto raised his head just enough to catch Kaeru's half-smile, a distinct impression reverberating that his cousin was laughing at him. Naruto rolled his eyes and saw Sasuke across the table, looking more green than pale for once. A portion of Naruto's throat relaxed at the thought that Sasuke was faring just as well as him.
"You idiot," snapped Sakura from Naruto's other side. "Don't waste good food like that."
Naruto flinched in anticipation of Sakura's temper. Getting Sakura-chan mad at him was never a good idea.
"Don't hit him, Sakura-chan," warned Kaeru with a wide smile. "He might explode."
Satisfied that the squeal that issued from Sakura meant that she wouldn't be socking him, Naruto rested his chin on the low table and tried not to move. Sasuke had his eyes closed and his head turned away. Naruto wondered if Sasuke would throw up—then he could rub that in Sasuke face, just not literally—but then his stomach curled at the thought of seeing, and smelling, anything that issued from Sasuke's stomach, and Naruto forgot about it.
Tsunami gradually cleaned up around the two boys who were still trying desperately not to puke. Eventually, she set out cups of tea for Kakashi, Tazuna, and Kaeru. Naruto gingerly sat up and wondered if he could actually get to see Kakashi try to drink the tea with his facemask on. His stomach still felt unnaturally stretched, but at least he didn't have the urge to empty it anymore.
"Tsunami-san, why is this picture torn?" Sakura called curiously. "Inari-kun was staring at it during dinner."
Naruto turned his head carefully. Sakura stood by the wall, gazing at a framed photo on the wall. He could just barely make out Tsunami and Inari in the picture, but the top right quarter of the photograph had been torn off, like Sakura said, was torn away.
"That's a picture of one of this village's greatest heroes," Tazuna answered for Tsunami.
Suddenly, Inari noisily got to his feet, kicking the table in the process and jarring Naruto's chin—and consequently stomach.
"Inari!" Naruto heard Tsunami call as he grimaced and swallowed away the sudden nausea. When Naruto opened his eyes again, both Inari and Tsunami wer gone and Tazuna was staring at the table sadly.
"Seems like there's a story here," Kakashi commented as if he didn't care.
Naruto looked to his teacher and saw that Kakashi's cup of tea was already halfway empty. Just for spite, Naruto pushed his tongue through his teeth at Kakashi. How was he supposed to see underneath Kakashi's mask if the ninja was so damn sneaky?
"Before I tell you about the hero, I need to tell you about the day Inari met that man." Tazuna took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose where the glasses usually rested. "His name was Kaiza."
Naruto lifted his arms and rested his chin on his folded arms. More comfortable now, he settled in to listen to the story.
"Inari had a dog named Pochi several years ago," explained Tazuna. "It was just a stray, but Inari took it in. One day, some boys were bullying him. They threw Pochi into the lake, then pushed Inari in after the dog. Inari didn't know how to swim. But Kaiza saved him and brought him home. After that, Kaiza became like a father to Inari."
Naruto let his mouth form a smile. Already this sounded like a good story. It was missing a little bit of action, like someone beating on those bullies that dared to pick on someone smaller than them, but still good.
"One month, we had more rain than usual," Tazuna continued. "There was a super big rainstorm, and part of the village was in danger of flooding. Kaiza dove into the rapids to tie a rope to the gate to pull it shut. He saved the village."
"He sounds like a good guy," Kaeru commented quietly into the silence that followed Tazuna's pause. His hand curled around his cup of tea, but it looked just as full as when Tsunami had set it down.
"He was," Tazuna responded.
Naruto liked this story. The guy really was a hero. To protect your home with all your strength was what a hero did. After all, that's what ninja did, wasn't it?
"But then, Gatou came to this country," the old man began again. His body shivered as if a cold breeze had shot through the room.
"What happened?" inquired Kakashi. He didn't sound quite so bored now, but Naruto wasn't surprised. The story was just getting good now.
"In front of everyone, Gatou put Kaiza to death," Tazuna announced solemnly.
Wide-eyed, Naruto stared at Tazuna and wondered if he had heard wrong. But Sakura and Sasuke both had similar shocked looks on their faces at the news that Gatou had taken away so much from the small family. That wasn't supposed to happen! The hero of the story wasn't supposed to die in the end. That didn't make a happy ending.
"Gatou accused Kaiza of committing terrorist acts against his corporation." Tazuna sighed and kept his eyes on the table instead of the shinobi watching him carefully. "Kaiza, the village's hero, was called a danger to the country's peace and killed. From that day, Inari changed. As did Tsunami and the whole village."
Naruto buried his chin in his arms and glared at the table. That was why Inari didn't believe in heroes. It was because his hero had died for what he believed. But Inari still cried for him. Naruto's brows came together swiftly. Konoha had heroes, too. Iruka-sensei had saved Naruto from that ass Mizuki. And Yondaime had died for his village; to save it from Kyuubi. That was what Naruto wanted to be. Not that he necessarily wanted to die. But he wanted to be a hero. He was going to be a hero.
Naruto planted his palms on the table and pushed off firmly. But as soon as he stood, his legs felt like jelly and refused to support his weight. He managed to turn his body so that he fell on his shoulder instead of his still-full stomach. But his grunt attracted everyone's attention.
"Naruto, what are you doing?" demanded Sakura.
"If you're thinking of training, don't," commanded Kakashi bluntly. "You've already used up too much chakra today. If you release any more, you'll be in danger of chakra exhaustion."
Naruto gritted his teeth and pushed himself up off the floor.
"I'm going to prove it," he murmured.
"What?" Sasuke demanded, and Naruto was almost too determined to get out the door to notice that the bastard hadn't even called him a name.
"I'm going to prove that heroes still exist in this world," declared the blond.
"You want help, gaki?" called Kaeru.
"No." Naruto frowned over his shoulder then softened his look. His cousin was cool, but Naruto had to do this on his own. "I have to prove it."
Kaeru stared at the boy for a moment with that intense look that always reminded Naruto of standing in front of Iruka-sensei waiting to hear if he had failed again. Apparently, Naruto passed because Kaeru-nii nodded once as a corner of his mouth turned up slightly. Satisfied, Naruto smiled back then marched out the door.
A/N: Success! I had hoped to get Haku in here, but it was too good of a stopping point to pass up. On the other hand, I think my chapters are getting shorter. We'll see what happens next time, eh?
(and no, i'm not Canadian, I just like the phrase sometimes)
And Sasuke is getting stronger with his teammates. Ha. He's still not my favorite character in the manga (currently, he doesn't have emotion for the position), but I do like playing with his mind.
Sincerely,
Fia