Chapter Twenty-One
"To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game." - Savielly Tartakower
Haruno Sakura
She would recognize that voice anywhere. When she walked into her house after a thirty-six hour shift at the hospital wanting nothing but a hot meal, a bath, and a warm bed, she was taken aback at hearing Naruto laughing about something in the kitchen with her father. Her mother's voice was interspersed now and then with little questions and comments."
"…and then Kokuo whispered to me that snow leopards can't actually roar and I'd offended their leader, Yuki Hyou."
"Kokuo was the horse one, right?" asked her mother Mebuki.
"Yeah," said her father Kizashi. "He was the one with five tails, I think."
"So what did you do?" wondered Mebuki.
"Well I gave them my gift," answered Naruto.
Sakura walked quietly through the hallway towards the kitchen. She lingered silently in the doorway, the darkness and the silent tread of her feet making her civilian parents unaware of her presence. Naruto sat with his back to her in a chair. Her father sat next to Naruto on the side of the table facing Sakura. The blonde shinobi and her father were both nursing beers. Kizashi was too busy laughing and slapping Naruto on the back to notice his daughter lingering in the doorway.
"Not that bright orange sweater," said Kizashi in amusement.
"Yep," continued Naruto. He threw his arms out in a wide gesture. The back of his ridiculous orange jacket stretched over his broad shoulders.
Her mother was facing towards the oven, slipping on mittens as she went to take the casserole out of the oven. She turned towards Naruto and her husband, setting it down on the hot plate in the center of the table. She pulled back her chair and sat down across from Naruto. Her mother's normally stern expression was softened to one of wry amusement. "But you said that snow leopards prize secrecy and camouflage above all else, just like the ninjas do."
"Yeah," Naruto nodded his bright blonde head. "They totally do."
"So you offended them further by giving them that present?" wondered her mother with a giggle. "Oh, Naruto, you shouldn't be so reckless!"
"So what happened?" wondered her father.
"Well in the end Yuki Hyou was a good sport and let me sign their summoning scroll. Their tribe thought it was hilarious that I was so bad at camouflage and still the strongest ninja on the Shinobi continent." Her parents both laughed uproariously at that and Naruto turned to face Sakura with a grin. "Hi, Sakura-chan!"
Mebuki glanced across at her daughter, "Sakura, you're home! I hope you don't mind that we invited Naruto over for lunch."
Kizashi patted Naruto on the back and said, "We wanted to get to know our future son-in-law better."
"Dad!" Sakura gasped blushing bright red and finally walking into the room. She sat in the empty chair at the table between her mother and Naruto.
"I don't understand why you don't invite Naruto over more often, Sakura," chided her mother. "I hope you're not embarrassed of us."
Sakura was sure that her face was quickly turning the same color as her hair. "So what were you guys talking about?"
Her father grinned widely. "Naruto was telling us about his last journey to the continent of the summons and his meeting with the great snow leopard summons."
"How many summoning contracts is that now, Naruto?" wondered her mother.
"Uh," thought Naruto to himself. "About eleven, I suppose."
Interlude
The Land of Heaven was a beautiful place. Naruto had never realized how close some of the summons's lands were to each other. The Land of Heaven was far across the sea from the Land of Fire – which was why they usually used summoning contracts to visit each other – but it was very close to the lands of the other summons.
The Land of Ink, an archipelago just offshore where the octopus summons lived, was a three day journey southwest by foot and boat from the Land of Shells. The Land of Shells was comprised of the peninsula and barrier islands where the turtles and slugs lived. The Land of Toads was bordered in the south by the Land of Shells, in the north by the Land of Steep Crags, and to the east by the land of Heaven. Land of Steep Crags was actually the huge mountain range that ran in a diagonal across the middle of the continent. The bird summons nested there. The view from the Land of Steep Crags was astounding: an ocean of water extending to the horizon to the west and an ocean of grass extending to the horizon to the east. Mount Myoboku rose high within the small part of the mountain range contained within the Land of Toads.
The Land of Verdant Plains extended east out from the foothills of the mountains as far as the eye could see; it was a huge green expanse where the horse summons ran free. The Land of Winter was a cold and barren land. It stretched across the north of the continent, bordering the land of Verdant Plains and a small corner of the Land of Steep Crags.
The Land of Verdant plains and its southern neighbor, the Land of Heaven, were both landlocked. The Land of Heaven was bordered to the west by the Land of Toads and to the south by the Land of Mangrove forests and the Land of Monkeys, which both extended to the ocean. A variety of insect summons lived on the border of the Land of Heaven and the Land of Mangrove Forests. The Land of Mangrove Forests was also home to the snake summons. Sasuke had been there before, but the place gave Naruto the creeps.
Naruto was proud to say that he had been to all the different Lands on the continent of the summons. He had rode with Kokuo through the tall grasses of the Land of Verdant Plains. He, Sasuke, and the Uchiha's hawk summons had climbed the tallest peak of the Land of Steep Crags and gazed in wonder at the world below them. He had fallen into the brackish water in the Land of Mangrove Forests while Sasuke, Chomei, and the Uchiha's snake summons hissed and chuckled at him. He had sat on Gyuk's head in the middle of a vast ocean while they watched the migration of the whale summons. He had stood on the shore stringing together a shell necklace for Sakura, while the pink haired medical ninja lay under an umbrella with Isobu, Saiken, and Sakura's slug summons. He had thoroughly embarrassed himself while in the Land of monkeys as Son Goku tried to teach him vine swinging. Of course the monkey summons had raved that Sarutobi Konohamaru was a natural. He had frozen his butt off in the Land of Winter when Kokuo had taken him with the diplomatic party of horses to meet the snow leopards.
The Land of Heaven was one of his favorite lands. It was amazing to think of just how many summons lived there. Naruto would always have a special place for it in his heart because it reminded him of home, of the Land of Fire, and Konoha. There were the cats in their Fortress, the raccoons and raccoon dogs in the mountains to the north and the foxes in the forests to the west. He very much wanted to visit the Foxes in the Torikku Forest, but he always felt a terrible guilty about it. How could he go visit Kurama's clansmen when the fox was trapped and sealed within him?
"I'm sure they won't mind, Naruto," said Kurama. "They will understand when I explain the situation to them."
'But they'll hate me when they realize that I'm your jailor,' Naruto retorted.
"I'm realizing that it's almost impossible for anyone to hate you," muttered the fox. "I'm a manifestation of the hate and darkness in men's souls and even I failed in the end."
'I love you too, Kurama,' Naruto laughed.
Kurama snorted.
Naruto sat at a table with Matatabi and Shukaku, enjoying a cup of tea. It felt a little surreal, he wasn't going to lie. "Have you been to visit Kokuo lately?" asked Matatabi, nibbling on some cat nip. "We haven't heard from him in a while."
"No, I haven't been to visit the Land of Verdant Plains in some time," said the jinchuriki. "Were the snow leopards giving him a hard time after my meeting with them? I hope I didn't get Kokuo in trouble."
"No," said Matatabi. "We would have been informed if the snow leopard clans attacked the horse clans. We just haven't received any communication from Kokuo in several weeks."
Shukaku shrugged. "It's probably nothing.
"It's the same thing that happened with Chomei," Matatabi observed. "He just stopped sending letters too."
Shukaku sneered at the cat. "That's probably because you keep sending all those tedious things. Chomei and Kokuo have better things to do than be your pen pals."
Matatabi hissed at the raccoon dog, "The others answer my letters."
"I still think it's the craziest thing that you all keep in touch," observed Naruto.
Matatabi cleaned her face with a paw. Turning to Naruto, she pouted, saying, "Surely you speak with the friends you made during your Shinobi War from other lands."
"Well, I guess," said Naruto. "But you all live so far away, isn't it difficult to communicate?"
Shukaku waved a claw at Naruto. "We send messengers as you humans do. We are not much different."
Matatabi nodded. "Kokuo and his horse messengers are the fastest."
"So what's going on with Kokuo?" wondered Naruto.
Shukaku sniffed, saying, "He's just sick of the cat being a busybody."
Naruto didn't want to worry them, but he had his suspicions. Suna wanted to seal the seven tails and make a jinchuriki. Iwa wanted to have the five tails. They wouldn't go back on their promises like that, would they?
Matatabi appealed to Naruto with huge eyes, asking, "Please, Naruto-sama, can you make sure that Kokuo is alright? I'm worried about him."
Uzumaki Naruto
Kakashi sat down in a seat in Yamato's office. "So what's up, Butsuma?"
"Butt, what?" sniggered Naruto. "Is that seriously your name, Captain Yamato?"
Yamato put a hand to his forehead and muttered, "It was my paternal grandfather's name."
"That sucks," muttered Naruto.
"You're named after fishcake, Naruto, I don't think you should talk," said Kakashi.
"I was actually named after a character in one of Jiraiya's books."
"You were named after a character in a soft porn novel?" Kakashi gaped.
"It was one of his other books," said Naruto scratching the back of his head and looking uncomfortable.
Naruto turned and then yelped when he noticed Yamato's scowl. "So what did you want to talk to us about, Naruto?" asked the ANBU commander.
"So I'm sort of thinking about retiring…" began Naruto.
"You're seventeen," noted Yamato.
"You better not plan to stick me with this job permanently," growled Kakashi. "It sucks. Tsunade was completely right. There's so much paperwork."
"Kakashi, the only paperwork that you've been doing for weeks is not assigning that single S-Rank mission," Yamato quipped.
"The mission has really complex parameters," countered Kakashi.
"Er," interrupted Naruto. "I'm not planning to retire from being a shinobi. I want to retire from ANBU."
"Oh," said Kakashi with great relief. "That's fine then."
"Awesome," said Naruto pumping his fist in the air and jumping up from his chair.
"Not so fast, Naruto," said Yamato.
Naruto deflated, slipping back in his seat and looking at the ANBU commander in horror. "Not that scary face, Captain Yamato, I can't resist that."
Yamato rolled his eyes. "Now's not really a good time for you to retire from ANBU. Any other time I would be fine with it, but there's extenuating circumstances."
Naruto pulled at his hair. "But Chika-taicho never lets me use Kage Bunshin or the Rasengan or Kurama's chakra or Sage Mode or the Hirashin or my super awesome original Rasenshuriken jutsu or summon …"
"Yeah," said Yamato. "She doesn't want anyone to know who you are. All ANBU have that constraint."
Naruto scowled. "My codename is FOX, Yamato, how more obvious can you get?"
"Uh," wondered Yamato.
"I want to retire so I can go on regular missions and use all my awesome jutsu! Chika-taicho's totally cramping my style."
Kakashi and Yamato shared and amused glance. Yamato continued, "I'm sorry to do this to you, Naruto, but there is a reason for it. It's because of ROOT. We don't know how far they're infiltrated Konoha and keeping you in ANBU where we can keep an eye on your teammates is where you're safest."
"ROOT is after me?" wondered Naruto. "I thought we didn't know what their plans were."
Kakashi sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. "We don't. But if they can assassinate you, they will. You're the strongest shinobi in Konoha and our future Hokage. If anything happened to you—"
"Okay, I'll wait to retire from ANBU then," said Naruto, immensely flattered by Kakashi's reasoning.