"I didn't think he was serious when he said he was going to hide in a dumpster," one of the voices outside Naruto's hiding place said.
"Oh, believe me, he doesn't say things he doesn't mean," a second voice responded.
Naruto sat up and lifted the lid of the dumpster, giving Izuna and Madara a flat stare. "Is it morning yet?"
Izuna squinted up at the sky. "About five o'clock. Sun hasn't come up yet. Did you seriously sleep there all night?"
Naruto shrugged. "I took a nap and forgot to wake up."
Izuna sighed. "That can't be sanitary."
"What can I say, I'm trashy," Naruto said, rolling over the side and forgetting to right himself. He landed on the street with a thud. "Ow."
"Sometimes I wonder how you're still alive," Madara said.
"Hardy har har."
"In my era, you would undoubtedly get your throat cut in your sleep."
"Ohhh back in MY day, sonny."
Izuna interrupted before a scowling Madara could retort. "You should probably get back to your room now. You still need rest."
"What a drag," Naruto sighed, standing up and starting towards the hospital at a snail's pace.
"Did you just come out of a dumpster?" A stunned voice asked to his right. Squinting, he looked up and saw Ino and Shikamaru at the end of the alley. A wrapped package was in Ino's arms.
"Yeah, so what?"
"Why were you in it?" Ino continued, nose wrinkling in disgust.
"I was sleeping."
"Why weren't you sleeping at your house?"
A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "Huh. That's a good point."
She glowered and stomped towards him. "Never mind that. Where were you yesterday?"
Shikamaru yawned. "We were looking for you for about four hours. It was troublesome."
"Why were you looking for me?" Naruto asked, confused.
Ino's expression grew incredulous. "Because it was your birthday?"
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh. Anyway…here." She shoved the package into his arms and nearly made him stumble, sticking up her nose. "Happy birthday. It's from all of Team Ten."
"Oh." Naruto held the package awkwardly. "You didn't have to do that. I don't celebrate my birthday."
Ino frowned. "Sakura told me you'd say that. Just take it, all right?"
"Ah…okay…thanks. I do appreciate it, despite how lackluster I seem," Naruto said, staring down at it with half-lidded eyes. "It's just like I said, I don't celebrate my birthday. Never have."
"Never?" She tilted her head, eyebrows furrowing. "Not even once?"
"Well, Sakura dogs me about it, but…"
"Just take the gift, idiot." Shikamaru yawned and turned around, walking away at a slow pace while Ino huffed.
"Thanks," Naruto called out as the two left, watching them round the corner.
Izuna tapped him on the head. "We're gonna go do something," he said vaguely, sinking into the ground. Naruto rolled his eyes.
He held the package under one arm as he made his way back to the hospital, inwardly betting with Kurama on how big Tsunade's explosion would be. The sliding scale they used went from 'mildly irritated' to 'put a man through a wall or two'.
The village was strangely quiet as he went. Song birds chirped along the branches of the trees dotting the village, and he could hear the sounds of the villagers starting their day, but overall, it was more peaceful than usual.
Even the hospital was calmer. He stepped inside the lobby on the first level, and the nurse on duty didn't even chastise him, just told him he'd been moved to a different room.
Rather than going to the aforementioned room, he took a seat in the cafeteria. A few patients were roaming about around him for breakfast rather than waiting for food to be brought to their room. He set Team Asuma's package in his lap and started undoing the fabric it was swathed in- no doubt by Ino's skilled hand. It was decorated with tulips as well; it'd probably had a spot in her family's flower shop beforehand.
Sighing lightly to himself, he stripped the fabric away, finding a plain box beneath its surface. He folded the fabric neatly and set it aside, flipping open the lid.
A boxy-looking camera was nestled in white tissue paper. A camera…? Wow, either they made a really lucky guess or they stalked me for a few weeks…or Sakura told them what to get.
(In actuality, his friend had mentioned many things Naruto liked to the other genin, and they'd made decisions regarding their own evaluations of him, but he didn't know that.)
Three photo albums sat on top of his desk in his room at the Uchiha district. Once upon a time, Sarutobi had given him a camera as a Rinne Festival gift, and the then six-year-old Naruto had gone a little picture happy. Most of those photos had been tossed out. He'd taken pictures of the most random things; trees, rocks, blurry images of ponds. He'd kept it around, however, and taken many photos of the only times he felt happy- when he was with Iruka or Sasuke. The first album itself was full of just photos of either Iruka or himself and Iruka. The second was filled with pictures of Sasuke, with Sakura making several appearances until she was appearing just as often as Sasuke himself; eventually, Kakashi entered the picture, so he'd written 'Team 7' across the front. The third was dedicated to the Sandaime and Jiraiya. Said camera had broken a while back, however, from years of wear and tear, and he hadn't the money to get a new one.
Okay, so this isn't so bad, he admitted to himself, looping the camera around his neck by the strap attached to it. He loaded a cartridge of film. I still refuse to have a party, though."Hey, Naruto!"
The boy looked up, waving when he saw Team Gai walking across the cafeteria towards him. Neji was in only a robe and a pair of hospital-issued pants, chest and part of his abdomen wrapped in bandages, walking with a cane while TenTen helped him along.
"What's up?"
"What's up is that we never had the chance to give you your birthday gifts!" Lee boomed, making him wince. "It is an honor to bestow this upon you, Naruto! I hope you cherish it for years!"
Quick as a flash, he whipped out a green jumpsuit, making TenTen facepalm. "Um…th-thanks, Lee. I'll…I'll put it to good use."
Tears streamed from the genin's eyes. "I am glad you like it!"
Naruto took the jumpsuit and folded it up, sweatdropping. "Seriously, Lee? One of those things?" TenTen demanded.
"I don't know what you mean, TenTen! This jumpsuit is imbued with the energy of youth from me and Gai-sensei-"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Here's mine, Naruto." TenTen held out one of the two packages in her arm.
"Th…thanks…" Naruto twitched, taking the package and feeling like three hawks were watching him as he unwrapped it. He didn't like opening gifts in front of people.
He retrieved a pair of hand fans from TenTen's box. They were smaller models of his own, with the same blood-red moons etched into them. "I can use wind chakra with these?"
"You bet! They were special order," TenTen replied with a grin.
"Thanks, TenTen. They'll be a lot better for stealth missions."
TenTen turned to give Lee a smug look, nearly faceplanting when she found his eyes shining. "That was a most youthful gift, TenTen! I commend you!"
Rubbing her forehead, she turned back to Naruto, sighing heavily. "Yeah, yeah…here's Neji's."
He took the second package, trying to guess what it was. Neji's blank expression, however, gave away nothing.
Unlike TenTen's gift, which had been wrapped in shuriken-decorated paper, Neji's was wrapped in plain white linen. Naruto unfolded it as carefully as Ino's, even as Lee literally shook with anticipation; when he opened the box within, he stopped cold, eyes widening.
"W…what…how…how did you get this?"
"What is it?" TenTen asked eagerly, leaning forward with Lee to peer in.
She tilted her head in confusion at the headband that lay within. It was a dark red, contrasting with the usual blue; for a moment, she thought Neji had gotten another Konohagakure headband before she registered the foreign symbol engraved into the metal.
"Isn't that the spiral all the chuunin and jounin wear?" Lee asked, confused.
"You should know better, Lee," said Neji, crossing his arms and closing his eyes. "That symbol is both the emblem of the Uzumaki clan and Konoha's former sister village, Uzushiogakure."
"That's right," TenTen said in realization. "It was destroyed in war, but everyone wears it in remembrance. Wow, way to show us up, Neji."
"This is…" Naruto snagged their attention again. "This isn't just…this isn't just one he had made. It's…original." He could feel presence on it- people had owned it before; it wasn't brand-new, and he could smell scents on it that were vaguely similar to his own.
"Original?"
"There was only some difficulty tracking one down," Neji said, shifting awkwardly when he saw a hastily-hidden tear leak from Naruto's eye. "My uncle provided me with assistance-"
"Wait, you mean that thing's an antique? Damn, way to really show us up, Neji," TenTen interrupted.
"-thank you," Naruto whispered, still staring at his lap.
"Eh?" The three genin looked at him.
Smiling shakily, he finally glanced up. "Thanks. I don't…celebrate my birthday…but thank you."
"It was no trouble, Naruto-kun," Lee beamed. "You are our friend. Happy birthday!"
"Yep," TenTen chuckled. "Happy birthday to you."
"Happy birthday to me…happy birthday to me…happy birthday, dear Naruto…happy birthday to me…"
The seven-year-old stared at his kitchen table, wishing he could've afforded one of the custom-made cakes he'd seen passing by a shop. He'd never had cake before, but he'd heard it was amazing. One in particular had caught his eye; it was baked in the shape of a shuriken, covered in grey frosting. But he doubted the shop owner would have sold to him even if he had the money; the last time Naruto stepped foot in his shop he'd been chased out with a broom.
Ah, well. He'd have to settle with the ramen cup in front of him. It was a special edition, anyway.
Not that today was particularly special- at least, not in a good way, if the way people had glared at him even more heatedly than usual was any indicator.
"Naruto? Are you all right?"
Startled, Naruto looked up at Neji, throwing on a grin. "I'm fine. I should just go rest. Thanks a lot, guys." He gathered his things, tossing them a wave as he made his way towards the elevators.
"Okay, gaki. Since it's your birthday-"
"My birthday was yesterday and I don't celebrate it."
"Since it's your birthday- I won't punish you for being so disruptive yesterday."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "Now then," Tsunade continued, grinning as she swiped something from behind her desk. She shot a furtive glance at the door before setting two sake cups on her desk. "Since it's your birthday-" Naruto sighed heavily- "I'll let you have a little sake."
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "You know I'm thirteen, right?"
"Most boys your age would jump at the chance to have a taste."
"Well, all right…"
She poured him half a cup before filling her own. Naruto shook his head with a chuckle, drinking his in one gulp.
She raised an eyebrow when he didn't start coughing. "You've had sake before? I thought it was just wine?"
"Uh…" How was he supposed to tell her a lot of older orphans had drinking problems and it sometimes carried over to the younger ones? He'd never been a full-on alcoholic, but when he was too young to know better or even what it was, he'd sought out the older street urchins for it because it made him feel better; made him forget the weight of the glares on his back every single day. When Sasuke found out, he'd put a stop to it, and he was the only one who knew besides Kurama. "By accident. Like with the wine."
"Ah." She nodded, pouring herself another.
The door opened. "Tsunade-sama, are yo- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"Oh take it easy, Shizune! I was just giving him a taste!"
"You can't give Naruto-kun sake! How irresponsible!"
"What?" Naruto heard Mito yell from somewhere in the hall.
"Gotta go!" he yelled, leaping out of his seat for the window. Tsunade and Shizune's bickering followed him as he let himself drop down the side of the building, using several pentagrams to slow his descent and not land himself being bedridden again. Even so, the landing made his legs throb.
He'd been released that afternoon after a check-up with a ten-minute lecture from both Shizune and Sakura about going straight home to rest and not pushing himself. Of course, there was no fun in that, so he let himself have some light activity.
"Naruto," a voice called from the street below, making him pause. Sarutobi stood with Jiraiya below, wearing a disapproving but amused expression. "Come down here, will you?"
Naruto grinned sheepishly and dropped to the street. "I wasn't doing anything strenuous," he said.
"You've got bad habits, you know that?" Jiraiya asked, poking his forehead repeatedly.
"Hey! You've got worse habits than me, old man!"
"Who are you calling old?!"
"That's enough, you two," the Sandaime sweatdropped. They both turned away, crossing their arms and pouting, exact mirror images of each other. "Naruto-kun, I didn't get a chance to give you your birthday gift."
"Ah. Yeah. I was in a dumpster."
Jiraiya gave him a confused stare.
"And what did you get, ero-sennin?" Naruto asked suspiciously, squinting up at him. "It better not be one of your stupid, boring books."
"Hmph! As if I would give the great gift of my literature to someone so unappreciative."
"Great gift? More like subpar gag gift written by someone who doesn't understand it's not legal to peek at naked women. I told you not to get me anything anyway." Jiraiya crumped to the ground in the corner with a spotlight over him as he sulked, Your godson hates you floating above him.
Sarutobi chuckled before pulling a package from his robes. "Here, Naruto."
"Thanks, jiji." Naruto took the package without argument.
"Eh?! He doesn't get questioned!" Jiraiya wailed.
Bam! Naruto whacked him upside the head with his cane. "Quiet, pervert!"
The sulking seemed to get worse, if anything.
Rolling his eyes, Naruto ripped through the wrapping paper, pulling a scarf out with a confused expression. It was a deep bluish-green color, with thin horizontal white stripes running the length of it.
"Your mother made that," Sarutobi explained gently.
Naruto paused, suddenly feeling as if he was holding something infinitely more precious than a normal old scarf. "Oh…" he muttered, not knowing anything else to say. "…th, thanks, jiji."
He didn't realize quite how long he'd been staring until a hand plopped down on his head and ruffled his hair. Pouting, he looked up at Jiraiya with a sour expression. "What, ero-sennin?"
"Oh, come on! Be nice for once!"
Naruto replied with a roll of his eyes.
"Anyway," Jiraiya grumbled, jabbing him in the chest with a box, "be grateful, you little brat."
"I swear if this is Icha Icha…"
"It's not, okay?!"
Naruto could have sworn he heard the Sandaime snicker.
He flipped the box open, mumbling to himself about lechers. There was a small pillow inside, cushioning a strand of pale blue beads. He pulled them out curiously, finding they formed a necklace with a gold tassel on one end. "Are these made out of ivory?"
"I was reading your notes," Jiraiya said, ignoring Naruto's indignant cry of 'Stop going through my things!' "A few weeks ago and saw you'd done some research on the beads shamans and spirit mediums use."
"Normal ivory usually isn't quite conductive enough."
"That's why I got it from summon elephants, not normal ones."
"How the heck did you find summoning elephants?"
"I have my sources."
"What can you do with those?" Sarutobi interrupted curiously.
"Well, usually spirit mediums just use them to amplify their power," Naruto replied. "You charge your own spiritual energy through them and use them as an extension. But they can also be used as a weapon. Usually just to bind spirits. Anyway, this is actually not a horrible gift, ero-sennin!" he said cheerfully, making the depression cloud reappear with 'not horrible' and 'inadequate' dancing around in it.
Sarutobi coughed into his hand, leaning down to mutter in his student's ear. "That means he likes it, Jiraiya."
"Really?" The man's eyes shone childishly.
"Don't tell him that, jiji, he'll grow a big head."
"You could say thank you for once, you know!"
Naruto wrapped his scarf around his neck and stuck his nose in the air. "But then you'd think I liked you."
"Yeah, well maybe I don't like YOU."
"My mission is complete."
"H-hey! Get back here!"
The Sandaime shook his head as Jiraiya went running after his wayward student, chuckling to himself. Some things never changed.
"That looks extremely difficult."
"It's really not."
"What're you even doing, anyway?"
Naruto didn't look up from his work. It had been four days since they were admitted to the hospital, and both he and Sasuke had been released to go home. Choji and Neji were taking it easy as well, and Kiba and Karin were already training again. He sat on the living room floor with a tiny brush and a bottle of ink infused with chakra, tracing patterns on each of the beads on his strand.
"Drawing different characters and seals on these. Conduction is all about balance, so if I write the kanji for love on one bead, I write the one for hate on the bead exactly opposite of its position on the strand. Then I'll make a seal next to each one with matching arrays. Then I might write angel on the one next to the seal, so you don't have two kanji right next to each other or two seals right next to each other or hate and demon near each other, but love and demon near each other. It ends up so the symbols for heaven and hell are on either side of the tassel."
"I see," Sasuke replied, watching him with curious eyes. He lay on the couch with a book in his lap; he'd gotten it from TenTen, and it detailed possibly every type of weapon known to man. "How are you going to test it?"
"I suppose I'll get someone to be my guinea pig," Naruto chuckled. "Maybe Izuna won't mind if I snag him."
The front door swung open. Sakura strolled in, swinging her keys on her index finger. "Guess what Tsunade-sama just told me?"
"You have a mission?" Sasuke wondered.
"New training?" Naruto suggested.
"Moving up a rank?"
"Is there something wrong with her pens and she thinks I did something?"
"Guys," Sakura sweatdropped. "I didn't mean actually guess."
"Oh," Sasuke replied blankly. "Well. What'd she say?"
Sakura sighed and flopped into the recliner. "She's just going to send us on a mission to evaluate our skills as soon as you two are fully recovered. But she also told me she definitely has someone in mind for promotion."
Sasuke perked up. "So one of us is a shoe-in," he said.
"Basically."
"That means we'll be the same rank as Anko," Naruto thought aloud.
Sasuke shivered. "That woman is insane."
"You still train with her and Sakura."
"She summons snakes to chase me."
"Are you traumatized by snakes, Sasuke-kun?"
"She calls it exposure therapy."
"Anyway," Sakura interrupted. "This is a big chance. You guys better be ready."
Sasuke sat up, being careful of the part of his shoulder that was still sensitive, and flipped his book shut. He stared at the cover, looking thoughtful. "Tokubetsu jounin, huh?" he murmured.
"A good opportunity," Naruto said, looking up from his beads. He eyed Sasuke with a shrewd gaze. "It's really weird, isn't it?"
Sakura nodded. She was staring at their ceiling, relaxing her exhausted body against her chair. "Where do we go from here?" she whispered.
They both knew what she meant. Although it was still bound to be an uphill climb finding other clan members for the two males of the group, they'd already gained clan head status, and were quickly on a fast track to advance in their shinobi careers. Sakura was a distinguished medic, having already taken on two more students.
They weren't entirely sure of what goals they now had; for years, they'd trained with leadership in mind, becoming stronger their only objective. However, there was one thing for certain: they weren't slowing down. Sasuke would still get up at four-thirty in the morning to do his weapons training, head over to the hospital for medical training two hours later, come back to the house for breakfast and leave to train with either Kakashi or TenTen at nine; he would still alternate between missions, training, and hospital shifts for the next nine hours until stopping by the hot springs to relax before some genjutsu and weapon training before bed. Sakura would still get up even earlier than he did to spend hours in the hospital archives studying various poisons and ailments; Naruto would still push himself so hard he ended up dragging himself back in barely able to stand.
"We deal with the Akatsuki and Danzo," Naruto said at last. "And I think making jounin would be pretty awesome."
Sakura grinned. "And we do it together," she added.
Sasuke looked up at her with a smirk. "Always," he agreed.
"I don't see one," Naruto said, standing on his toes to see over a rack of weapons.
"Some weapons shop," Madara muttered sourly behind him. "The shinobi in this village really have gotten soft."
"Oh well." Naruto turned around with a pout. "Maybe somewhere else has one."
He set one hand on the hilt of the Raijin no Ken as he passed by the store owner, not unaware of the fact weapons enthusiasts usually stared at it with an envious gaze. Madara eyed it as he followed him.
"I assume the Senju taught you the genjutsu you used against the boy." 'The boy' being Sasuke and 'the Senju' being Hashirama.
"Yeah. The only A-rank I can use because of how much chakra it takes. 'Suke still broke it pretty easily though." Naruto wondered if Madara was unhappy with how often the Senju brothers- and now Mito, to help him with fuinjutsu- were coming around the compound now. He was pretty distant the other day, he thought, eyeing the ghost curiously.
Madara glared into space. "Too bad on the fan," Naruto shrugged, writing it off as another of the man's behaviors he didn't understand. "You're the only one who knows how to use one. Asuma-sensei's a wind type, too, but I doubt he's used a gunbai."
Madara stopped. Naruto paused, nearly stumbling over his own feet as he tried to backtrack at the same time. "Madara?"
The man knelt down and traced a seal in the dirt. "Create this on sealing paper," he said.
Confused, Naruto did as he asked, laying it in front of them. "Now what?"
"Can you use some of my energy to activate it?"
"Suuure," Naruto said, deciding to just go with it. He focused his own spiritual energy to his fingertip, pressing it against the ghost's shoulder and drawing away a small grey flame. He pressed his hand against the seal and charged his chakra through.
There was a puff of smoke, then there was a gunbai laying on the ground in front of him, making Madara draw back with a pleased expression. It was a large non-folding fan with a long handle wrapped in bandages, a chain attached to it, and three tomoe on each side that resembled the Sharingan. The chain was connected to a kama.
Naruto wasn't quite as weapon-crazy as Sasuke and TenTen, but he was always appreciative of wind-type tools. "Cool!" he gushed, grinning as he picked it up by the handle. It was longer than he was, but he easily hefted it into the air.
"It will convert incoming chakra into wind transformation and reflect an enemy's attack back towards them," Madara said. He doubted that Obito brat would be needing it. "This is Uchihagaeshi. It is both for offense and defensive tactics; there is little that can break it."
Naruto had stars for eyes at this point. "Let's go to the Forest of Death!" he cheered, leaping up and taking off at a sprint.
"I hope they aren't doing what I think they're doing…"
"They'd better not be doing anything dangerous."
"Surely Naruto-kun knows better now."
"I've told you before and I'll tell you again: Madara is a bad influence. You know what happened last time they were training together. I don't even know why Madara was training him."
"Oh, come now. I think he likes him."
"You may believe he's turned over a new leaf, brother, but I don't."
"Look at how Izuna's changed; you remember what he was like. He used his last dying breath to warn Madara not to make an alliance with us. He loves the village now- and Naruto-kun. He sees him as his little brother."
Tobirama sighed. "I know."
"Many of the Uchiha see him as part of their family," said Hashirama contemplatively. He glanced up through the treetops at the afternoon sun, watching the leaves shiver in the breeze. "I suppose it's no wonder he wishes he were a part of their clan sometimes." His brother was silent, undoubtedly thinking of the same thing he was. They'd both seen Naruto interact with the Uchiha ghosts; they treated him just like Sasuke, like he was a part of their family. The ones that patrolled the border of the Uchiha compound greeted him when he returned, and the ones that weren't trapped in mourning made efforts to almost take care of him- in a way, it made Hashirama wonder just how bad Naruto's habits used to be. They asked if he'd eaten, had water, slept within the last sixteen hours; the most utterly basic things. They were cold to most other ghosts in the village and rarely strayed beyond their walls without a reason.
Naruto was only ever truly relaxed in the Uchiha district. It didn't matter how many Senju or Uzumaki ghosts were around anywhere else; they didn't give him the same peace of mind an Uchiha did.
Hashirama blinked when he noticed how rapid the tree leaves above him were flapping about. He finally noticed the airy sensation in his body- they couldn't really feel wind, but anything that went through them produced physical feelings of a different kind- and looked down with a frown. "Tobirama, the wind's picked up, almost like…"
"It's coming from over there," Tobirama said, leaping onto a tree.
The two darted through the forest. A sound reached their ears just as another gust of wind barreled through them; a wild cackle that was a tad bit concerning.
"That sounds like Naruto-kun," Hashirama sweatdropped.
Indeed, just as they emerged from a grouping of trees, they spotted the boy standing on a branch, having cut down every tree in front of him. He was grinning wildly, arm outstretched, with a fan in hand-
"Is that Madara's gunbai?" Tobirama muttered incredulously.
"Hide!" Hashirama whispered frantically, tackling him behind a tree and garnering a startled noise of disgruntlement.
"-the Fanned Wind becomes larger the more chakra you put into it," Madara was explaining. He stood with his arms crossed beside Naruto, expression blank. "Now have a clone attack you."
A clone popped into the air beside Naruto after the boy made a one-handed sign. It leapt onto a tree stump across from him and charged up a Rasengan. The real Naruto shifted the fan to a defensive position as it leapt at him, letting the fan take the hit.
The space between them lit up like it was exploding, winds whipping off the fan in the directions of the Rasengan's spiraling pattern. The Rasengan seemed to disappear, and a fraction of a second later, wind burst from the fan and sent it shooting back, dispelling before it could slam into a tree stump.
"And that," said Madara, sounding just the tiniest bit smug, "is the Uchiha Reflection."
"Sugoi!" Naruto jumped up and down, hair tossed this way and that from the winds. There was a scarf about his neck, wrapped so it didn't get in the way, with three tags attached by string tied around it at various points. They each had different seals on both sides and, strangely enough, they hadn't come off in the winds. A necklace of beads hung from his belt, looped so they stopped before they reached his knee. "That was awesome!"
"When you are using the kama, you can use it to skewer opponents or as an anchor. I assume you've used weapons attached to a chain before?"
"Yeah, Sasuke made me learn."
"It is primarily a support to the fan, not a weapon on its own, and should be used in conjunction. Used correctly, it can be used to pull yourself to enemies, or pull them to you to deliver a finishing blow with the gunbai. You can also use the gunbai as an anchor instead to gain the proper force to mortally wound someone with the kama."
Naruto swung his sickle experimentally, aiming for a stray leaf on the tree-littered ground. The blade landed in the wood mere centimeters from it. "You would do well to reduce the size of the fan to something more manageable, and increase it as you grow t… Older," Madara said, aware of the fact Naruto had reduction seals he used for said purpose since they lived in the same house.
"You were going to say taller, weren't you?" Naruto scowled.
"I have no obligation to explain my word choices to you."
Naruto pointed at him as a tick pulsed on his forehead. "You're not exactly the tallest guy around either, ya know! You're not even five-nine! Your hair just makes you look taller than you are."
Madara's brow creased. "…how do you know how tall I am?"
"Er…that doesn't matter."
Hashirama and Tobirama watched them bicker from behind a tree, with Hashirama's eyes wide in curiosity and Tobirama wearing a flat, twitchy expression, as his brother insisted on standing close enough to the tree trunk his nose went through it.
Izuna touched down on the duo's branch, having some from the opposite direction as the Senju. "Being destructive again, brother?" he asked, amused. Madara just snorted at him.
Naruto beamed. "Destruction is beauty," he said, closing his eyes and wearing a matter-of-fact expression as he crossed his arms. "That fleeting, short second when you achieve true exhilaration; a transient moment in time where nothing but that feeling matters. That's art. Art, art is an ex-"
Izuna interrupted him with a sigh. "Why are you like this?"
"Hey, don't disrespect art, ya know!"
"For some reason I feel like I've heard that ideology before," Madara wondered aloud.
Izuna gave him a dull stare. "You're an enabler," he said bluntly. His brother just raised an eyebrow at him.
Neither one noticed Naruto had unintentionally riled himself up, eyes on fire as he ranted inwardly. "Art," he breathed, snagging their attention as he snatched several blue orbs from his pouches, "is an explosion!"
He threw the orbs, and they exploded with a blast large enough to shake the very forest floor. The air superheated in milliseconds as the ground rocked, decimating everything in a forty-yard radius, leaving the trees scorched and enflames and the leaves burnt to dust. Dark smoke began to rise high into the air like a beacon, surrounding the cackling blond as he knelt on a pentagram far above the blast sight.
Izuna rubbed his forehead from his place floating beside it, sighing. "How exactly do you make those?" Madara asked, eyes narrowed slightly in thought.
"Ah, well, sometimes I use fuinjutsu to create a charge with lightning or fire chakra and explosive powder that can be activated with chakra, or just a seal, like with an exploding tag. Other times I just infuse a bomb with my chakra to activate later."
Izuna blinked. "Wait, you never told me that. You use just your chakra?"
"Yeah?"
"Bakuton, then."
"Bakuton?"
"It's a nature transformation kekkei genkai, like magnet release, involving mixing earth and lightning chakra to make your chakra explosive. But the only people I've ever known to use it are those from Iwa."
"That's weird," Naruto said, glancing down at his hand. "But not impossible. It's not a technique passed down through families like Byakugan or Sharingan, yeah?"
"Right. It's usually just shinobi from Iwa's explosion corps. Like magnet release, which is found in Suna shinobi as well as Kumo and Ishigakure shinobi. I do find it ironic your father probably has relatives from Iwa, though." He and Naruto snickered.
"Oh, look," Madara interrupted sarcastically. "You did catch someone in that explosion."
"Eh?!" Naruto whirled around in concern, snorting when he saw Tobirama and Hashirama pulling themselves out of a pile of trees. "Hey!" he yelled down. "What're you doing?"
"Just coming to see you, Naruto-kun!" Hashirama called back, a giant sweatdrop running down his face.
"You ought to say something next time, ya know!"
"Ahahah, sorry, sorry-"
"Oh crap!" Naruto gasped suddenly, turning to face the village. "I forgot I have to meet Sasuke!"
"For what?" Izuna resisted the urge to facepalm when he took off on an air-born path of seals, neglecting to answer. "Oy! Get back here, brat!"
"Evaluation is tomorrow!" Naruto shouted.
"Evaluation? For what?" Izuna stared after him, confused.
"So…the Forest of Death again."
"I hope this doesn't go like last time."
"I doubt Orochimaru could get in again."
"And yet he just keeps doing it."
"Aw, c'mon, security's tightened-"
"We had not one, but four spies, Orochimaru himself showed up at the chuunin exams, and the Sound Four apparently snuck past the barrier team for days."
Naruto sweatdropped. Sakura patted Sasuke on the shoulder, sympathetic. "Don't worry, Sasuke. We won't let the bad snake man get you." They were standing outside one of the gates to Training Ground 44, waiting for Anko and the chuunin she was speaking with to signal them to start.
Sasuke shot her a glare. Naruto adjusted his scarf so it was wound tighter around his neck. He'd debated bringing it along, but he was confident in the protection tags he'd tied on; Sakura had tried with all her might to tear it with no success while he cringed and covered his eyes. The tags would protect it from fire and water, from being torn or shredded, from falling apart, and from whatever else he'd thought up that could happen to it.
"Are you allowed to wear that?" Sasuke asked, referring to the Uzushiogakure headband tied around his neck, only half visible beneath his scarf.
"Uzumaki shinobi of Konoha back in the day were given automatic citizenship to Uzushiogakure. Even though they technically weren't shinobi of Uzushiogakure, they were given a headband, so I would be allowed anyway. And it's not like it's against the law to wear a headband for a village that doesn't exist."
"All right, gakis!" Anko interrupted, strolling over with a lopsided grin. She patted Sakura on the head before jutting her thumb at the gate. "Ready to be in danger of dying every second you're in there?"
"Yes," Sasuke replied, thinking she was serious.
"Absolutely!" Sakura said, a fierce fire in her eyes.
Naruto shrugged. "Not like I don't hang out in there three times a week."
Anko twitched. She waved her hand, prompting the chuunin to open the gate. "Run along, brats. Careful of the snakes," she said, snickering when Sasuke scowled at her before taking off.
The three lapsed into a triangle formation as they darted into the forest with Sasuke in the lead. Tsunade had told them to be there at the crack of dawn, not telling them what their objective was or what they would be doing. Sasuke's plan was to make it to the tower, the only real landmark in the forest.
Instead of leaping through the treetops, he had them stay on the ground, zigzagging between the trunks and over obstacles without straying more than a foot out of their formation.
"So," Sakura said, ducking beneath a branch, "what do you think they're going to pull?"
"I'm guessing we'll be ambushed at some point," Sasuke replied. "They'll most likely try to split us up and evaluate us individually, but not too early; they'll want to see how we work together."
"I think it'd be easier to just let them split us up," Naruto said. "There's no use trying to stick together when they need to see our skills on our own anyway, and it gives us more room to focus on counterattacking. They'll probably be thinking we're trying to stay together."
Sasuke blasted off hard from the ground to vault himself over a river. "All right, then. There's a possibility it's a trap to split up, but it does give you an opportunity to show off your Bakuton." Neither Sasuke nor Sakura had been surprised about Naruto's special nature affinity. Not surprised at all. "And room to let loose without worrying about hitting us."
Naruto shifted the size-adjusted gunbai on his back. He'd wrapped tags around the hilts of all his weapons that would electrify anyone with a different chakra signature than him or his teammates who tried to use it. "Seems like all there's to do is go forward and see what they have waiting for us, then," he said, grinning.
"Agreed." Smirking, Sasuke picked up the pace, and Squad Seven disappeared into the forest.
Next time on Tuna Fish, a preview:
"I just don't see how making things explode can classify as 'art'."
"Sasuke, look. I respect your opinion, but…it's just WRONG. Art isn't paintings or sculptures or whatever. It's fleeting and short; nothing lasts forever! It's literally impossible! So what's the point of trying to become immortal? Everything rots eventually. Art is the sizzling heat that makes your eyes water in the moment of detonation, the ephemeral rapture, the euphoria, the ecstasy. When you lose your self and only know the beauty of that moment. Art is…art is…art is an EXPLOSION, ya know," Naruto finished, an insane glint in his eye as he took out several red orbs from his explosives pouches.
Sasuke blanched. "Naruto, put those away."
"Holy crap, he's like a mini-you," one of the cloaked figures across the clearing said in an awed tone. The blue-eyed blond beside him looked extremely interested as he watched them, but Squad Seven's attention had turned from their enemies to a trembling Naruto.
"Naruto." Sakura held up her hands, sweating. "Put the bombs away."
"I'll show you my art," Naruto said, a wide grin crawling across his face. He turned back to the cloaked shinobi, completely oblivious to how they'd been watching him in morbid fascination instead of attacking. "We'll see how asinine this is, Sasuke.""Naruto don't-"
He dropped the orbs. In the three-quarters of a second they took to hit the ground, several things happened:
They began to glow an ominous, fire-engine red as several explosive tags dotting the clearing activated, having somehow gotten there without anyone noticing.
Naruto grabbed his teammates' elbows and disappeared with a wild cackle, throwing them miles into the sky with the seal glowing underfoot.
And the orbs exploded, sending shockwaves through the ground that the village sixty-seven miles from the place they'd detonated could feel.
33. Evaluation: True Art A/N: Several people have been asking about this (I'm not addressing any particular person), so… No, I won't tag this as yaoi. For one, it's notyaoi. I have said this before, but apparently it didn't stick… :P
It's a gen fic, with minimal romance, and when I discuss pairings with people, it's about theoretical futures where Naruto's grown up, emotionally stable, and at the end of the fic or in a sequel/spinoff fic. (I'll probably just do spinoffs so the Main fic is mostly romance-less outside SakuLee for people like me who prefer friendship fluff over people kissing every chapter... "Tuna Fish: Sensei-in-Law Verse" for the Team Gai/Team Kakashi universe, "Tuna Fish: Crow and Fox" for the ItaNaru universe, haha.) That means that with probably around 60 chapters or more (I honestly don't know how long this will turn out but I don't see the end in sight yet and we're not even to Shippuden), you would only get a few scenes or chapters if any involving romance; I don't think that warrants a tag because yaoi fics are stories with male/male romance as the whole focus. Secondly, I like to portray a wide diversity of sexualities, like anything else, in my writing, whether it's my own or just fanfiction. Sasuke is heteroromantic asexual. Sakura is pretty much Lee-sexual, but I like to think of her as demisexual. Naruto is pretty much pansexual in my Tuna Fish headcanon. (Again, this is future-Naruto, not 13-year-old-still-a-kid Naruto.) I'm not going to tag a fic for just one of the sexualities that may be portrayed.
I won't be breaking the T rating or writing NSFW/lemons. I don't write them. I think people on here forget T is "13 and up" and sex scenes and hardcore innuendo aren't appropriate for people on the lower end of the spectrum the rating encompasses.
Sorry about the long A/N, but I hope that finally clears up any questions about pairings so I can spitball with readers about them in peace. :P If people still complain after my explanation I'm just going to ignore it. :P You can easily skip over what little scenes in the main fic, if any, there would be involving Naruto and a love interest, or not read the spinoffs having to do with pairings. Selective participation and all that. xD
And YES, our dear old Kakashi-sensei will be getting spotlight again. xD Madrigal-in-training, you are doing a good job of convincing me, my friend.
A guest suggested this and I thought I'd show it for everyone to appreciate (I will include it, haha):
I just have the mental image of Naruto trying to convince Sasuke of the wonder of art and how fleeting it truly is with Sasuke just looking exasperated, with Itachi and Deidara listening in, until finally Naruto just asks flat out why Sasuke can't seem to "grasp" this "fundamental truth of the world" and Sasuke sighing and explaining that saying something is fleeting doesn't make sense when you can remember everything you see with perfect clarity, especially when the Sharingan also allows you to relive the moment in complete unhindered unfading detail anytime you feel like it...and quick cutscene to Deidara and Itachi with Deidara looking like he got whacked upside the head with the wet fish of paradigm shift and glancing over at Itachi who just blinks and shrugs/nods in a "he's got a really good point" manner... Plus Naruto accusing Sasuke of not even liking explosions with a desert-dry look from said Uchiha who points out that the coming-of-age ritual for Uchiha is making a ginormous fireball, along with the Uchiha philosophy of "if at first you don't succeed, try sawdust and a match".
...by the waaaaay, if you like this mental image...feel free to include it?
"All right, let's have a look at it."
"At what?"
"Your seal, dummy. I'd like to check it over."
"That won't be necessary, ero-sennin. The key you have won't even work anymore."
"Eh? How do you know about that? And why not?"
"I've examined my seal hundreds of times; how would I NOT know? And it won't work because I altered it. The Eight Trigrams my father used allowed my chakra to mix with Kurama's, but it was also gradually weakening. While Kurama isn't going to willingly break out and kill me in the process, I needed something stronger to hold up during our training together and something that would put up more of a fight if someone came around to try and yank him out of me. I also wasn't particularly keen on having a seal someone could forcibly lock and deny us access to each other."
"How did you do that without the key?"
"I studied it for a long time, deconstructed, and altered it from within my mindscape. Made my own key, so to speak. The obvious next choice was a torii seal, but my goal wasn't to imprison him and take his chakra forcibly. The seal I have now is a… 'mix', let's say, between the Hakke no Fuin Shiki, a torii seal, and other elements I've incorporated. I like to call this a Nine Trigrams Seal instead."
"Should've expected this from you, gaki. You might just be even better at this than your father. All right, let me see this 'Nine Trigrams Seal' of yours."
"Stop here."
Naruto halted with a near silent thud on a downed tree, glancing at Sasuke out of the corner of his eye. "Traps ahead," Sasuke said, Sharingan blazing as he examined the path ahead. "Wire type, but they're made with very thin chakra thread, something a normal shinobi might not notice. Follow my footsteps exactly."
Sakura nodded as she and Naruto fell in line behind him. First, he leapt onto a tree branch, ducking around the side of it and beneath a low-hanging group of leaves, being careful not to let any touch him. They followed him in a zigzag pattern and kept an eye out for any additional traps, keeping one hand on the hilts of their swords.
Sasuke paused on a branch and raised his hand. "Naruto, I think this is your division."
Naruto grinned and pulled a brush from his belt. He flipped open the bottle strapped next to it and took out a stack of sealing paper from a storage seal on his wrist.
Ahead, there were tags littering the trees; there'd been a genjutsu concealing them, but Sasuke had already broken it. Naruto threw several tags of his own so they landed on top of the ones already there; they crackled with electricity before starting to smoke, both sets falling limply from the bark to the ground.
The group started forward again. "Pretty sure ero-sennin made those," Naruto said, amused. "I recognize the thickness of his outer spiral lines."
Sakura sweatdropped. "Only seal junkies," she muttered.
"They might've expected us to try and go around those," Sasuke said, Sharingan still active as he acted as lookout. They darted through the trees at their previous pace, already halfway to the tower. "But I doubt there's any one part of the forest that will be less difficult to traverse if the tower is really our goal. Have you two found anything weird in the forest itself?"
"Nope," Naruto replied. "I don't sense any chakra signatures except for a few at the tower."
"Same here," Sakura agreed.
"And I haven't caught any odd scents either."
"Good. We proceed with the plan then."
They burst from the trees into a clearing, pausing on the riverbank. Ahead, a tunnel had been constructed that hadn't been there before, about twenty foot high. A sign was tacked onto the top.
Squad Seven: Enter the tunnel to complete your goal.
"We could just consider this a distraction or trap and ignore it. We could have time constraints we don't know about," Sasuke said, arms crossed as he examined it. "But it could also be crucial to the test itself and be actual instructions. The whole point is to show our skills and it's bound to be a difficult battleground."
"Going in, then?"
"Going in."
The cave was pitch black inside, the light from the afternoon dimming the further they went until they were left in complete darkness. Naruto held up his palm and muttered under his breath, producing three small orbs of light that started to circle around them as they went.
Their progress was halted when they came upon a door. It spanned the whole height and width of the cave in front of them, made out of stone and sitting on gigantic hinges. Without needing to be told, Naruto took a tag from his pouch, throwing it onto the crease the doors made. It glowed briefly before he turned to Sasuke. "No sealing traps on it."
"All right then. Sakura, your turn."
Sakura smirked, jumping forward and cocking her fist back. She punched the door and released a shockwave, making her teammates wince and cover their eyes as it crumbled to bits before them and made the cave shake.
Naruto whistled. "Wow. That thing was four feet thick."
"You knew just how much chakra to use without bringing the roof down," Sasuke said, glancing up at said structure. "Good job." He proceeded through the doorway, stepping over the rubble.
The chamber beyond was wider than the previous section, lit by torches on the walls. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, four kunai came barreling out of the dark, making him snatch up his own to deflect them.
Squad Seven dashed forward, shooting for the door they could see on the other side while a haze of weapons rained down from every conceivable direction. Sasuke snatched several kunai out of the air and threw them back to disable the mechanisms throwing them, doing the same with the shuriken and senbon coming his way. Sakura wielded her sword in a helicopter-like fashion to deflect any coming for her, while Naruto simply-
"Are you making your hands explode?"
Naruto cackled, summoning another explosion in his palm to deflect an incoming kunai and send it back towards the wall with the same force it'd been thrown with. "Yep! Been working on it for three weeks."
Sakura shook her head. She bolted forward and slammed her fist into the next door, not even waiting for it to crumble all the way before leaping through the opening. Sasuke and Naruto flanked her, blocking any stray weaponry gunning for them.
The chamber they entered was a straight chute up, covered in spikes that met halfway. They began jumping from each one towards the surface and came to a stop when several shapes emerged from the walls above.
"Marionettes," Naruto said. "I fought some in those old forbidden exam grounds. Disassembling them should take them down."
"Disassemble it is, then."
Sasuke leapt for the closest one as the marionettes rushed them. The three lunged upwards in the cramped space, dodging around spikes and using them to make the marionettes skewer themselves. Sasuke's quickly became littered with kunai and shuriken in the joints to lock them up, while Sakura bashed through hers and Naruto used explosions to take their limbs off.
They were nearing the top when the chamber rumbled. Several of the spikes started retracting into the walls, making Sakura leap off her perch just before it disappeared and scramble to connect herself to the closest wall. Her hands and feet slid on the surface as she cursed and hurriedly leapt onto a bar laying across the opening. "Can't stick to the walls!" she yelled down.
"Uh-oh Spaghettios," said Naruto as he plummeted.
He quickly shifted his fan to lay over his body, detaching the kama and chain from it. "Sasuke!"
Sasuke descended landed on the fan with a thud, making him wince. The Uchiha snatched up the chain and pushed off hard, making him barrel even faster down the chamber towards the ground. Before he could go splat like a ramen cup falling off the Hokage Monument, Sasuke landed on the bar and swung the chain around it, with the kama anchoring it and halting anymore downward progress.
Naruto snapped to a stop, dangling from the handle of his gunbai. He shot his teammates a thumbs-up as Sakura rapidly yanked the chain up, depositing him on the bar beside them. They all jumped to slid ground, having come out in front of a fence that had been erected. It rose high into the air and barred any access to the tower.
Naruto appraised the three gates in front of them and the seal tags stuck to each one for a few minutes. "Those types of tags are notoriously hard to break," he told his team. "They're designed to force one person to be in front of a gate or door when it opens, so a squad is split up. Have to get it right on the first try, or else the gate locks down permanently."
"Trying to split us up, then," Sakura surmised.
"The question is, are we going to have you break them or let them evaluate us individually?" Sasuke set his hands on his hips and tipped his head back to examine the fence.
"Well, hypothetically, I could break them," Naruto replied. "But there's at least a thirty percent chance it would fail on the first try. Your call."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes and sighed. "All right, then. We split up."
"Aye-aye, cap'n," Sakura said, saluting before sauntering over to her gate. Sasuke took the one in the middle, while Naruto stood in front of the last. They could all see the fence led in different directions, closing them off from each other.
Naruto shot his friends a thumbs-up. "Best of luck to you!" he called, shoving his gate open.
Sasuke's path lead him straight forward to a small, two-story tower that must have been created overnight. Probably by the wood-style user he'd heard Naruto mention before.
Staying cautious, he stepped through the open front doors, not reacting when they swung shut behind him and left him in darkness. He activated his Sharingan out of instinct as he gazed around at the numerous practice dummies, small rock formations, and hanging targets that hung about. The room was wide and deep, windowless, and illuminated only slightly by a few very dim lights on each side.
There was dead silence all around him. Sasuke moved towards the stairs at the back, one hand hovering over his sword hilt and the other over the scrolls hanging from his hip, two on each side.
He heard the person behind him rather than felt their presence. He swung around in time to block an incoming strike with his blade, snapping the strap that kept his first scroll in place off as he pushed a masked Konoha chuunin back. Three more came darting out of the shadows- they'd had to have been hiding some place other than the room he was in, as he hadn't spotted their chakras.
Sasuke threw his scroll up and bit his thumb, summoning a large scythe from it. He swung it around full circle hard enough to slice through the rock formation behind him, making all four of them dodge backwards. Planting the blade into the floor, he used it to push off and leap onto a boulder several yards back, pulling the scythe towards him with a chakra thread before quickly resealing it into the scroll still floating over his shoulder.
"Chidori Nagashi!"
Electricity crackled through the ground towards their feet. He watched two of them dodge, the other two not quick enough to avoid the attack. They fell stiff to the ground.
"Magen: Shinkarasu," he whispered.
He couldn't help but smirk at the strangled cries of pain that filled the air. Two thuds signaled the last two falling to the ground, leaving him to leap off his rock and roll his scroll back up, heading to the second level with no further interference.
There was a genjutsu cast on the stairs to make them appear as if they were five stories high. He broke it almost without thinking, stepping into the second room with blazing red eyes and frowning when he spotted the table in front of him. There was a lone piece of paper in the center.
Eyes darting around, he carefully lifted the paper, making sure he was alone before reading it.
Who makes it, has no need of it.
Who buys it, has no use for it.
Who uses it can neither see nor feel it.
What is it?
Sasuke thought for a moment. "A coffin," he said.
A door opened up in the wall.
There were four chuunin waiting for her when she arrived at the riverside surrounded by pink flowers.
They didn't attack at first; they let her amble about, already aware of where they were, examining her surroundings before she sent a kunai into one of their thighs, garnering a startled grunt.
They leapt at her as one, but she was already anticipating what they were planning. Sakura ducked beneath the first's punch and slammed her fist into his stomach, making him cough up what sounded like blood and saliva into his mask. He stumbled and crumpled as she lunged for the second, blocking another's tantō with the bracer on her forearm before she swung her leg into her target's arms as he made to block. There was a loud crack before he stumbled away from her, leaving room for the last one to aim at her liver.
A moment later, both of them went flying in different directions, while Sakura gleefully called out- "Leaf Hurricane!"
She'd studied many taijutsu styles- Strong Fist, Gentle Fist, her teachers'; her own was a mix of Gai and Lee's techniques, Tsunade's monstrous strength, and Kakashi's style. It was no surprise the chuunin proved no challenge for her.
Sighing to herself, she knelt down beside one of them, placing healing hands over his arms. "Sorry about that," she said, amused. Behind her, the first one removed his mask so he could puke onto the grass. "I'll be with you in a minute," she called.
"Th-thank you," the man before her stuttered. "We were no match for you, Haruno-san."
"You can make it up to me by telling me what I need to do from here," Sakura winked, moving to the puking chuunin. She placed a hand over his stomach, and his shoulders sagged in relief. He pulled a piece of paper from his vest, handing it to her.
There is a story that a man and not a man
Saw and did not see a bird and not a bird
Perched on a branch and not a branch
And hit him and did not hit him with a rock and not a rock.
How is this possible?
"A eunuch with bad eyesight sees a bat sitting on a reed and misses when he tries to hit it with a pumice stone."
"H-how did you?!"
"It took him three hours to get that one," one of the chuunin muttered. "You can proceed to the tower now."
Sakura beamed.
Naruto was currently perched upside-down on a pentagram in the air, watching the four chuunin below scramble about madly as they tried to avoid the bombs dropping on them. Various colors and sizes tumbled out of the sealing arrays in the air, connected directly to his storage.
Taking pity on them, he dropped down and nailed one in the forehead with an electrifying tag. He went rigid and screamed before the tag deactivated and he fell to the ground like a stone.
Taking a ball of clay from his pouch, Naruto cocked back his arm and threw it like a baseball towards the second chuunin. He whirled around just in time for it to slam into his chest, taking him back into a tree as exploded into a spider shape because of the seals it was covered in. They spread out to the area around him, sealing his chakra and movements.
Naruto raised his hand and ceased his barrage of explosions. The last two chuunin visibly sighed in relief, but nothing could compare to the priceless expressions they wore- they'd lost their masks long ago- when they saw him bearing down on them with his gunbai drawn.
He slammed it bodily into the first one, knocking him out. He swung his kama and aimed for the last chuunin's abdomen, wrapping the chain around it so his arms were immobilized and the blade itself rested harmlessly against his flak vest. Whirling around, Naruto swung the man into a tree, knocking him unconscious from the sheer force of it.
He tied the four to a tree with ninja wire with various sealing tags hanging off it. Upon raiding their pockets, he found a slip of paper.
Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?
"Man," Naruto sighed. "I hate these."
He rubbed his head, thinking for several long moments. "A human being," he deduced. "It crawls on all fours as an infant, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then walks with a cane in old age."
The fence gate in front of him swung open, just like magic.
It was a bit nostalgic entering the room the chuunin exams had been held in. There weren't any spectators this time, just a large empty arena.
"Hey, I think I still see one of my blood spots," Naruto exclaimed.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "See that?" she asked, pointing to the scroll sitting on top of the statue's head.
Sasuke leapt up to retrieve it. They huddled around as he opened it, raising their eyebrows at the official seal near the top. "We have a mission," Sasuke said, skimming it. "We're leaving immediately."
"Where to?"
"The Land of Rivers. There's a small village on the coast we're to deliver a package to. It's sealed within the scroll. We're being timed, as well."
"It will take at least a day and a half to reach the Land of Rivers," said Sakura, eyes flitting across the paper as she thought out loud.
Naruto smirked. "Not if we do it my way," he said, making them both squint at him.
"And what, exactly, is 'your way'?"
Naruto sat cross-legged with his hands clasped together in the rat hand sign. Sasuke and Sakura sat on either side of him, occasionally taking nervous glances at the ground.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Sakura asked suspiciously.
"Have a little faith, will you?"
"It's not that I don't have faith, you've just never done this much."
There was also the fact that sitting on something transparent, no matter how much one trusted the wielder, was disorienting the first time around.
They were all sitting upon a large pentagram the size of a small pond as it zoomed through the air at a considerably faster pace than how fast they would have been able to run. There was a clock-like design constantly spinning around and around within it, powering it as it went. Naruto himself hadn't said much, too busy concentrating on keeping it moving and afloat.
Sakura took out one of her supply scrolls and retrieved several energy bars. She handed one to Sasuke and unwrapped Naruto's, holding it next to his mouth so he could eat while she stared off into space with a thoughtful expression. "Who do you think they'll pick?"
"Naruto, for sure. He could be Konoha's one-man demolition squad," Sasuke replied. She nodded in agreement.
"You guys took out your obstacles pretty easily," Naruto said distractedly. "I wouldn't be surprised if they promoted Sakura for her taijutsu."
"Or Sasuke for his genjutsu and weapon mastery," Sakura added.
"I'm not quite a master yet."
"You're much more highly skilled with most weapons than the average shinobi. Your aim is even on par with TenTen's. It's only because she's overall weaker than us she wouldn't be promoted if she were a chuunin. Because you're stronger in general- with how much chakra you have, your prowess with taijutsu and ninjutsu- your hand to hand with weapons is only enhanced. But you can also give Kurenai-sensei a run for her money, too."
"Maybe," Sasuke said, glancing at the horizon. The trio was quiet for a minute before he spoke again. "How's training with Kurama's chakra going, Naruto?"
"I've achieved seven tails in my version one state," Naruto replied after a moment. "In my version two, I've reached four tails. It's tiring to use, even if the negative effects are removed since I'm friends with Kurama. Transformation is going well. It'll be a while yet before I can fully transform, but I can turn my hands and arms into claws now without any side effects."
"I'm glad it's going so well," Sakura sighed. "Jiraiya-sama said word was Akatsuki was on a hiatus, but if they decide to push their plans earlier it's better for you to be able to use as much of Kurama's strength as possible."
"Yeah, that's what he said." Naruto went back to focusing on his pentagram.
For some reason, he felt like they were being followed, even if he sensed no one within miles.
"Akatsuki," Sasuke murmured. The sun was setting in the distance.
Sakura glanced at him with sympathetic eyes. "We'll get your brother home," she said gently.
Sasuke nodded. "I know. It's just…what will I say to him? I've had so long to think it over but I still don't know. I know why he had to do what he did, but…he could have been honest with me, instead of just leaving me like that. He knew I would probably seek him out one day to kill him."
Sakura reached over Naruto's back and set a hand on his shoulder. "It was an impossible situation and an impossible choice. You'll get the opportunity to ask him everything you want to know."
"I'm just afraid…afraid it won't be like before. That we won't be like before."
"Don't be silly. You're still brothers and you still love each other. It may not be exactly like it was before, but it won't be bad. I promise."
He smiled. She reached over and poked him in the forehead, making him wince with a chuckle. They all did it to each other; Sasuke had started it by poking Sakura when she'd been crying over kids making fun of her forehead, and it had transferred to the both of them to do when he was particularly depressed. They'd never really stopped.
"Whaddaya say we kick it up a notch?" Naruto said, interrupting their moment with an evil grin. They both blanched.
"Naruto I don't think that's necessary-" Sasuke cut off in a scream as the pentagram shot forward, him and Sakura grabbing onto Naruto for dear life as the blond cackled.
"Why the hell did we have to deliver a box of bread crumbs?"
"I don't know, Naruto. Tsunade-shishou probably just grabbed something random."
"Or something she knew would irritate you."
"Shut up, Sasuke."
The three were walking through the forest, rather sour, as they were surrounded by- quite literally, miles and miles and miles of nothing but woods. The village they'd visited was nearly seventy miles behind- Naruto had had to take a break from flying, his magic depleted, and they were stuck on the ground. They weren't in any particular hurry; it'd only been a day, and they were already way ahead of schedule.
"I hate being stuck in the middle of nowhere," Naruto mumbled. "It's boring as hell."
"Patience, Naruto-chan." Sakura was clearly amused, if the smirk she wore was anything to go by.
"I could go for some ramen right about now…miso," Naruto sighed dreamily.
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You'll just have to wait." He checked his watch. "Eight in the morning. Not bad."
Naruto kicked a stray pebble. "Being a tokubetsu jounin could be fun," he mused. "Go on missions with Anko."
Sakura smiled at the thought. "No more D and C-ranks," she added.
"You got it; not unless we're leading them."
"Can tokubetsu jounin get genin teams?" Sasuke asked. For a moment, they all paused, shivering lightly. "I hope not."
"I don't want to deal with three fresh-faced arrogant little academy brats," Naruto groaned. "They're always so annoying and hard to handle, ya know?"
"We could always just use the bell test and make it really hard," Sakura consoled. "Then fail every one we got like Kakashi-sensei."
The three smirked in unison.
Naruto adjusted his ponytail, grin widening. The sunlight trickled through the treetops onto their heads as they walked lazily through the maze tree trunks and bushes. The path started to clear some, opening up so they had more room, able to walk across grass instead of picking their way across leaf and twig-filled ground.
"I'm sure baa-chan wouldn't give us any so early, anyway, if tokubetsu jounin could take teams. I'm pretty sure it's only jounin anyway."
Sakura finished the energy bar she'd been snacking on and rolled the wrapper up to stuff in her pocket. "Imagine Anko with a genin team."
Naruto giggled to himself while Sasuke just shook his head. "Now that I think about it," Naruto said randomly, eyes lighting up, "this is the perfect place to have some nice explosions! No population, no one around, just forest!"
"No," Sasuke said flatly. "You are not decimating the landscape."
"I wouldn't destroy that much!"
"No."
"Please?"
"No!"
"But Sasuke, art is important!"
"Bombs and destroying things are not art!"
"They are so! It's beautiful!"
"Art is-" Sasuke sighed, rubbing his forehead. Sakura stopped and gave them a dull stare as they bickered. "I don't care much about art, I'm a shinobi for Kami's sake, but watching a forest blow up isn't it."
Naruto scowled. "You just don't understand," he said, turning his nose up. "You can't appreciate its true value. The utter glory of it. When something explodes, in that fleeting moment, it achieves true beauty-"
"The idea of something being beautiful when it's falling apart is asinine!"
A tick grew on Naruto's forehead. "Don't you insult my art, ya know!" he yelled loud enough to make several birds burst from a tree. Loud enough to gather the attention of another set of travelers passing by their location.
Sakura moaned and put her face in her hands. "Guys."
"I'm not insulting it. I just don't see how explosions classify as something artistic. There's literally nothing artistic about it."
"How would you know what art is? Bombs are special kind of art- the destruction-"
Three figures stepped out of the trees. The one in the back, a short, wide figure, looked exceedingly irritated, while the blue shark man Sakura recognized looked to be just tagging along for the giggles. The one who'd emerged first was a blond man with his hair in a ponytail, looking to be following the source of the noise.
"How is destruction art? How can something be art if it's dying?"
"That's what makes it art."
"Guys," Sakura said urgently, retreating to Sasuke's side as she eyed the three newcomers. Naruto finally noticed them, glancing at them with a surprised expression before Sasuke caught his attention again.
"I just don't see how making things explode can classify as 'art'."
"Sasuke, look. I respect your opinion, but…it's just WRONG. Art isn't paintings or sculptures or whatever. It's fleeting and short; nothing lasts forever! It's literally impossible! So what's the point of trying to become immortal? Everything rots eventually. Art is the sizzling heat that makes your eyes water in the moment of detonation, the ephemeral rapture, the euphoria, the ecstasy. When you lose your self and only know the beauty of that moment. Art is…art is…art is an EXPLOSION, ya know," Naruto finished, an insane glint in his eye as he took out several red orbs from his explosives pouches.
Sasuke blanched. "Naruto, put those away."
"Holy crap, he's like a mini-you," one of the cloaked figures across the clearing said, clearly in awe. The blond beside him looked extremely interested as he watched them, but Squad Seven's attention had turned from their enemies to a trembling Naruto.
"Naruto." Sakura held up her hands, sweating. "Put the bombs away."
"I'll show you my art," Naruto said, a wide grin crawling across his face. He turned back to the cloaked shinobi, completely oblivious to how they'd been watching him in almost morbid fascination instead of attacking. "We'll see how asinine this is, Sasuke."
"Naruto don't-"
He dropped the orbs. In the three-quarters of a second they took to hit the ground, several things happened:
They began to glow an ominous, fire-engine red as several explosive tags dotting the clearing activated, having somehow gotten there without anyone noticing.
Naruto grabbed his teammates' elbows and disappeared with a wild cackle, throwing them miles into the sky with the seal glowing underfoot.
And the orbs exploded, sending shockwaves through the ground that the village sixty-seven miles from the place they'd detonated could feel.
Naruto was still cackling as they plummeted through the air, one arm wrapped around his stomach while the other held onto his gunbai to make sure it didn't come loose.
"You're insane!" Sakura howled.
Far below them, Sasuke could see a large crater where they'd been standing. There was a white shape in the air flying towards them at a steady pace. Cursing, he bit his thumb, running through the required seals. "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"
A large hawk burst through an explosion of smoke. It spread its wings and leaned back to catch them, seating them safely on its back. "You have a summoning?" Sakura asked, stunned.
"Kakashi-sensei helped me find one. I was going to show you two later." Sasuke shot a dirty look at Naruto. "When we were in the village and hadn't basically just attacked three Akatsuki members."
"At least they can't get us up here," Sakura sighed in relief.
Naruto was still on his bomb-happy high, not registering quite what he'd done. With a grin, he peeked over the edge of the hawk's side, eyes wide. "Did they bite it?"
"Doubt it."
As if on cue, the white shape zipped past his hawk's nose, making it draw up short. Sasuke cursed and grabbed a handful of feathers to steady himself.
The weird bird thing- what else could he call it?- righted itself. The blond Akatsuki member stood on its back, wearing a grin Sasuke thought was really too delighted.
"Never thought I'd find a fellow artist from the Leaf of all places," he said, and Sasuke suddenly got a very, very, very, very bad feeling.
Naruto stood up, only slightly shaky on his hawk's back as it flapped its wings to stay hovered in place. "Fellow?" he tilted his head, confused, before lighting up like a fire jutsu used on gasoline. "Wait a minute! I know you!" he pointed wildly at the Akatsuki member. "You're Deidara the Mad Bomber!"
"Oh no," Sakura moaned, head falling forward.
"I see my reputation precedes me," Deidara smirked.
"You can make explosives instantly with your Bakuton," Naruto said, eyes shining like a madman. "Because of the forbidden jutsu you used. Mine can't do that."
"Yours?"
"My Bakuton."
Deidara's eyebrows rose. "A Leaf shinobi has the Bakuton?"
"Deidara," an annoyed voice called out from below. The four of them turned to look at the shortest of the Akatsuki, staring up at them from the ground with the amused shark man beside him. "Play with the Leaf genin if you want, but I won't wait for you. Finish quickly." He turned and began walking away. Or shuffling, could've been either one from Sasuke's viewpoint.
"Genin?" he muttered, insulted.
"We're not genin, ya know!" Naruto yelled down.
"Hah!" Kisame barked out as he was walking away. "Brat's even got a verbal tic!"
It finally occurred to Sakura that Itachi wasn't there, and she wondered why Kisame was with this pair of Akatsuki before Naruto caught her attention again. "Furthermore," the blond continued, pointing again, "you know what real art is, unlike Sasuke here," he said sarcastically, giving his friend a glare.
Sasuke practically hissed at him.
"Uchihas, what can you do," Deidara said, visibly amused. "You're Itachi's little brother, aren't you?" Sasuke shot him a glare. "Ooh, touchy subject."
Naruto clapped his hands together. "Please show me your art, senpai!"
Sasuke sneered. The teenager in front of them was practically preening now. "All right, we'll have a little go," he said, wearing a grin as wide as an alligator's mouth. "I want to see what you can do."
"Sasuke, lend me a hawk," Naruto said, turning to his teammate and grabbing his shoulder.
Sasuke made a disgruntled noise, but summoned another hawk anyway- a smaller one, with a strap around its neck to hold on to- because he knew there was no dissuading Naruto now. The blond leapt onto it and unzipped one of his explosives pouches halfway.
The two birds rose into the air far above them while Sasuke and Sakura watched. "I have a really bad feeling," Sakura said.
"The feeling is mutual."
"Think we're gonna die?"
"Maybe."
"Not comforting."
"Nothing's comforting about Naruto meeting someone as crazy as him."
If anyone had been around to see it, they would have been in awe of the spectacle in the air. The forest was covered in smoke, making it hard to see much of anything; it had risen high into the clouds to obstruct the two combatants' views.
Explosives detonated at various points, making Sasuke and Sakura wince every time. A hawk burst through the smoke, flying upwards at a breakneck pace as its rider held on with one hand, cackling madly. His other hand was busy retrieving several blue baseball-sized orbs with black X's on them.
He tossed the orbs to meet several small, white flying insects. He quickly veered the hawk away from the resulting explosion, darting back into the smoke as he tried to regain sight of the white bird.
Iruka had been the first one to teach Naruto what an explosive tag was. He'd sat Naruto down, put a bottle of ink and a brush in front of them, and traced the pattern until Naruto had it memorized. He'd made his own for the first time secretly- as Iruka had cautioned him against it- and nearly blew himself up in the process, but it was a day in his life everything had changed.
He hadn't been able to stop. He wanted to know more, be able to do more. He'd eaten up everything he could find on the subject with an intensity he hadn't used on anything before. When he'd witnessed his first explosion, it had scared him so bad and knocked him off his feet, he had stared into space for a whole minute. It had been exhilarating.
It had distracted him completely from the pain and misery he was subjected to on a daily basis.
When he made things explode, it was something that he could do, something that was his specialty that no one else had. He didn't know of another explosions specialist in Konoha.
Some part of him had been viciously satisfied with it. Some part of him had enjoyed seeing things destroyed; it let him work off his anger at the village and lose himself in the practice. There was an inherent danger, even for a master, that gave him a thrill; if he died one day, it wouldn't be because some villager beat him up in an alley or the village tried to off him. It'd be on his own terms. He would be immortalized. His death would be beautiful. It would be an explosion, and no one would forget it or forget the awe they'd felt because of the Fox Brat.
Explosions were beautiful. They were his art. He'd heard civilians talk about art before; they referenced evaluating paintings and sculptures and all the things a younger Naruto had found utterly boring. He thought art was supposed to be exciting- to create explosive feelings in the viewer. In the artist.
No one understood his art.
But this man- barely older than a boy himself- did, and Naruto would allow himself the brief joy of letting himself go, letting himself look across the battlefield and see a pair of eyes that shone with the same light his did, letting himself meet on this plane and play the game with someone who understood, even if he knew what the Mad Bomber was; a member of the Akatsuki, someone who would probably try and capture and kill him if he knew what he was.
But he would allow himself just this before he had to face reality again.
Their birds burst from the smoke into a clear section of the sky. They turned to face each other. Naruto grinned, and finally felt as if he were truly enjoying himself. He had a worthy opponent.
Deidara smirked, rearing back his hand to release a bomb-
"NARUTO!"
"Gah!" Naruto flailed, nearly falling off his bird as Izuna shot into the air beside him. "What the hell, Izuna?!"
"Sorry," said Izuna, not sounding sorry at all. He lifted his hand, showing he had a death grip on a terrified-looking ghost. Most ghosts couldn't fly to the same heights Izuna could, hence the fear. "This guy knows some things about your family."
The man was short and wore glasses, which were perpetually cracked. "A-ah, yes," he stammered, clearing his throat. "My wife was the midwife when one of your grandfathers was born and then again when his child was born."
"And?"
Deidara blinked, hand frozen in place as the boy talked to thin air. "What the hell…?" he muttered, drifting closer.
"Well you see, a younger married Inuzaka woman had a rather illicit affair with a man named Namikaze, and their daughter had an even more illicit affair with a man from Iwa called Ishikawa Goro. It was all hushed up very quickly after he left for his country. Their child was given the name Namikaze after his grandfather. And that child was the father of the Yondaime Hokage."
"I was looking all night and all day for someone who knew something," Izuna huffed.
"I would never forget that face," the man continued stiffly. "Ishikawa had a scar running over his left eye and a very stern expression. One of his eyes was blue, but the other was pitch black, and he had a scar on his cheek in the shape of a triangle of all things. Never told anyone how he got it."
"Hey, kid, what are you doing?"
Naruto jumped, turning back to Deidara with a sheepish expression. "Uh, sorry! I just…um…got some information about a relative. Wouldn't happen to know of anyone called Ishikawa Goro from Iwa, would you?" He seriously doubted the teenager did, or that any of the man's family was still alive- or that he could even forge a connection, what with them being from Iwa of all places.
Deidara blinked. "Ishikawa Goro?"
"Yeah. Guy who used to be alive a few decades ago. Had a scar on his left eye, one of them was blue, one of them was black, had this-"
"Triangle-shaped scar on his cheek, constantly looked like he had a stick up his ass," Deidara finished.
"Ah! So you do know him? He's my great grandfather!"
"He's my great grandfather," Deidara balked.
Naruto's eyes went wide. They both stared at each other, silence filling the air for a moment, before they pointed wildly at each other, having the exact same over-the-top reaction.
"You're my cousin?!"