Chapter 14: New and Informative Revelations

Author's note: forget what I said about writing constructive reviews a few chapter ago, just review, flame me or don't flame me, I'm fine with it, as long as it helps with my writing. Now, onto the story!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Around a month after Naruto's first travel

Naruto smiled. The puppet parts he had ordered had finally arrived, most of them anyways, and he could begin upgrading his puppets. He went from simple things like obvious weapons to hidden weaponry to general additions.

With his father's knowledge, particularly regarding reverse summoning and the art of Fuinjutsu, he could easily equip his puppets with the membrane he had thought of months ago, but never could actually build up till now, which would protect the delicate hearts from damage. In fact, he had gone one step further, by using not one, but two membranes. If the outer membrane was damaged, the heart would automatically be transferred from the puppet into Naruto, who would then be able to use their powers as himself. However, should the inner membrane be damaged, in other words, should someone directly attack Naruto, the hearts would be teleported to a safe location, where Naruto could easily pick them up and reunite them with their puppet body.

Seals were generally a great addition to his puppets, and Naruto was more than generous in their application.

He was still waiting for a few more parts, but for the moment, his puppets had gone from 'A slight bother for a B-rank' to 'A serious threat for an A-rank', which was quite an improvement.

Of course, part of the reasons the deliveries took so long was that Naruto had insisted that he wanted hard and tough, but non-magnetic materials, as he had no intention of making things easy for an experienced Raiton user, that type of user occasionally finding a way to influence magnetic fields, though few ever reached a level even close to that of the Sandaime Kazekage or Toroi.

Well, he had done all he could for now, it was high time to spend some time with his mother. He had locked himself up for three days, and he still wanted to make a few journeys. Perhaps one of his parents had came from Kumo?

-0-

Kushina hummed happily to herself. Had anyone told her a month ago that she would be able to go to bed without nightmares about what she had lost, she would have beaten the bastard to a pulp, but her son really lightened up her life.

They had been cheated out of much of the time they should have been spending together, but both of them seemed almost desperate to make up for lost time. Most nights Naruto would actually crawl into her bed, hugging her tightly, as if to prove to himself that it was real, and perhaps fearing that if he let her go, she would vanish, like most of the good things in his life. They had been given a second chance, and both were determined to make good use of it.

Though Kushina could tell that there were still depths in Naruto's mind that nobody, not even her, was privy to, traumas that he shared with nobody. She knew that Naruto had been, according to his own words, up to his elbows in a corpse, and from the nonchalant way he'd said that, more than once, but she didn't know why. What had Orochimaru forced Naruto to do that required such a monstrous act for one so young?

Kushina didn't push Naruto for answers, though. She didn't want to reopen old wounds, and perhaps Naruto was trying to forget. Still, she had vowed that she'd always be there, an open ear for his sorrows.

But for that to be always true, there was one more thing she needed to do, only that she didn't want to leave Naruto alone.

As coincidence would have it, Naruto walked in that moment. "Mom, can I talk to you for a moment? I'd like to take another trip, is that okay?"

Kushina blinked. "Well... as long as you don't go anywhere dangerous. It just so happens that I wanted to talk to Sarutobi, so if you can promise to be back for dinner, and stay out of trouble, you can go on a short trip. But at the first sign of trouble, you're gone, alright?"

Naruto nodded obediently. "Yes mom."

Kushina still could not believe how wonderful it felt to be called that. She pulled Naruto into a hug, which the boy who had been starved of affection for so long eagerly returned.

"I love you, Naruto." Kushina whispered.

Naruto nodded, as he could practically feel his mother's love embrace him, feeling far better than any stolen memory. "I love you too mom."

Kushina grinned. "Now what do you say we go to Ichiraku's for lunch?"-0-

'Where to go?' Naruto asked himself. He wanted to go to Kumo, despite it perhaps being dangerous. He simply had no clues just where his other parents had come from, and Kumo, the true strongest village from the military standpoint, seemed to be a fairly good start.

But just popping up inside the village seemed a stupid idea. Not only was the chance of being seen very high, but if Kumo had a detection-barrier like Konoha, then simply appearing out of nowhere would immediately raise alarms, and bring the entire village down on his head. No, it was better to appear a few miles away from Kumo, then walk the rest of the way by foot, and enter as a civilian.

He had recently found out that while the henge or disguise genjutsus were not beyond him, he could still perform them for a short while, the longest taking up to at most a hour, however, one of the ones who had donated their genes and abilities to him apparently had the ability to perfectly mimic the shape, voice, and even the chakra signature of any person that he or she had studied to a sufficient degree, which he intended to use for stealth. Suiyou, his futton-puppet, should be reasonably anonymous, but he'd fix that up when he was in Kumo's vicinity.

Skipping over the memories of his puppets, using them like a computer instead of 3D cinema, he decided on a location. It was only a mile from Kumo, but it was by a lesser known but regularly traveled path. It was nothing more than a bunch of boulders at a cliff wall, so Naruto should have plenty of cover when he came out. Focusing on the location, he sank into the ground.

Cliffhanger No Jutsu!

I know, this chapter is very short, and I'm also very sorry to say this, but these type of very short chapters may happen occasionally from time to time, due to writer's block. (screw you writer's block!) I am now using my phone to type out the story, as I don't have wifi at home, due to my mother taking away my internet modem, and I'm currently using my data plan to upload this, and it loads freaking slow by the way. Hope you readers forgive me! XD

On another note, I'm sorry to disappoint you guys again, but I have my I upcoming exams and it is my O levels this year, so I don't have much time to write the story, after the next chapter is uploaded, I doubt I will be writing another chapter so soon.

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Till next time, ja ne!