Original Publish Date: 24th-September-2015
A/N: Wow. At this moment in time I have over 1k views and over 600 visitors. This being my first story, I have no idea if that's good or bad, but to me it looks damn good, and gives me a good feeling, so thank you to every one who read / favourited / followed!
Aside from that, I have a minor complaint from you guys. With this chapter I've written over 10,000 words; I don't think it's too much to ask you guys to write 10 words when you reach the end of the page. Even if it's a simple "I loved it, I want moar!" or "You suck" it will help me tremendously.
Remember, more reviews means more motivation, means more chapters sooner!
Chapter 3 – Coming Back to Life
I took a heavenly ride throughout silence
I knew the moment had arrived
Killing the past and coming back to life
- Coming Back to Life, Pink Floyd
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Masks itch.
I made this discovery a few scant hours after having worn one. I had no idea how Kakashi-sensei managed to wear one all day and all night. The worst part was the chafing of my day old beard against the stupid cloth. I absently started rubbing my chin, chafing my day-old growth further and yet weirdly liking the sensation despite finding it irritating. Ugh. Stupid time-travel, messing up my relationship with pain. The mask was very much needed though; already a few people in the street had done a double-take when they saw me, so strong was my resemblance to my father, even though my hair was far longer and in a ponytail.
Having completed my D-rank for the day, I looked at the address of the apartment building I had been assigned by the Hokage and frowned. The address seemed familiar for some reason. A suspicion came over me as I started walking towards it; soon, I realized my feet were guiding me there without me needing any directions whatsoever. A few moments later, I stopped in front the building, rubbed that stupid mask again and sighed.
Goddamn manipulative old coot.
It was my old apartment building – the one I had lived in as a kid. Not only that, I was even on the same floor. I had no doubt it was a disingenuous move designed to make me befriend my younger self. I sighed again and made my way up the stairwell, feeling strangely apprehensive about running into him. Thankfully though, my luck held, and I reached my apartment without running into anyone, and I entered quickly.
Maybe I would meet him tomorrow.
30 days later
Well, I was officially a coward. I still hadn't met Naruto.
I kind of went out of my way to avoid him, coming in during hours when I knew he wouldn't be in and around the building, and sneaking in through the window whenever he was. I could hear him during the evenings, trying to study (unnecessarily loudly in my opinion) his Academy lessons. Some of what he said was so horribly wrong made me cringe, but it's not like I was any better at that age (har har). And unless I went over and helped him out, it was likely to stay that way.
Well, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
On the other hand, I had completed my mandatory D-rank mission rotation yesterday, so today was the day I handed in my fake history and officially made my recommendations about the course of action we should take. I was kind of apprehensive, but excited at the same time. I had come up with a few ideas about what to do so as to be ready for Akatsuki and Orochimaru, and I couldn't wait to get started to stick it to those bastards.
Over the last month, I had spent 3 or 4 nights every week in his office debriefing him about the events that were to follow. Surprisingly, once these minor sessions were over, I stuck around and just talked to him; and it was fun! He had a surprisingly sharp sense of humor, and I got the feeling that he enjoyed our evenings together just as much, if not more than I did. Upon reflection, however, I realized that he was simply lonely. I wasn't the only one to have lost my family the night I was born; he had lost his wife as well, along with the man who he had entrusted his mantle and legacy to. He had then been forced shoulder the burden of the entire village, with nobody there to help lighten his load.
No wonder he had killed himself in defense of his village against Orochimaru; he probably just wanted to be remembered as a hero the same way the Yondaime was.
There was some buzz as I entered the Hokage tower, and a few people looked curiously at me. It was rare for the old man to block off an entire day just for a simple debriefing, not to mention it was with the guy who literally popped into existence. I made my way up to the office, taking note of their glances but not outwardly reacting. I made my way up, and smiled at the secretary as she let me in, and my smile froze as I once again felt the attention of the hidden ANBU snap on to me. They had not taken kindly to me, what with me appearing right in front of the Hokage. If it had been an assassination attempt it would have been successful, and that was a black mark against them, considering that it was their primary duty. Not to mention, even though the Hokage had added me into the registry I was still unknown to them. I'm sure they must have done their digging and found nobody who knew me; which was because nobody knew me. They kept their guards up around me and that in turn made me tense, but that feeling disappeared as soon as I performed my privacy Fūinjutsu-Ninjutsu hybrid technique.
"I am glad to see that you do your Uzumaki heritage justice. Both your parents would have been very proud of your proficiency in the art; even at your young age you have certainly surpassed me," Sarutobi praised.
Being complimented by the man renowned as the Professor was high praise, indeed. I blushed as my hand automatically came up to rub the back of my head. It was one tic that I had never managed to rid myself of; thankfully I had managed to get rid of my verbal tic a couple of years ago. "You still have no idea what I'm capable of ji-chan," I boasted.
Sarutobi smiled, "If I'm right about the tattoos on your arms, you appear to have surpassed your father in terms of techniques."
"You could say that," I murmured agreeably. I still had trouble accepting praise, but even I knew (now) that there was a time and a place for that. Also, when had I become such a teacher's pet?
"I look forward to seeing you in action." He put his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands together as he leaned forward. "Speaking of action, make your recommendations about the course you wish to take."
"Well, to start off, I want to be drafted into the ANBU. My presence is the greatest weapon we have against the enemy. While I am getting sick of the staring from the villagers, as an ANBU I would officially have anonymity and report only to you. It would also give me freedom of movement, and some of these plans require me to move out of the country…"
A few hours later
"…I still think that had Sasuke and Orochimaru shown up that day and fought on our side against the Jūbi and Madara that we would have won. Instead, he summoned all four Hokages and I was pitted in a death match against my own father. And I got to know why you were so feared in the Shinobi world. And basically everything went to shit from there."
"But what happened to the Jūbi?"
I snorted. "Obito threw a hissy fit. He used his Sharingan to send it to a different dimension. The effort killed him, but apparently he was not feeling very charitable after being betrayed by his boss." I scoffed, "Why are all the Uchiha so easily manipulated anyway? Is it something in their blood? Or maybe their own eyes cast some weird genjutsu on them; every Uchiha I know of is prone to some form of mental instability."
The Hokage frowned, "But by that point, shouldn't the war have been over? I mean, there was Edo Tensei Madara, but I would like to think that four Edo Tensei Hokage's would be a match for him. I'm sure Orochimaru would not have appreciated the competition."
I shook my head, "That wasn't it. Sasuke and Orochimaru took out the cantankerous geezer. The problem was that their team assassinated the Daimyo's."
His expression soured further. "I see."
"Yeah. Once the royal families were killed the rest of the nobility tried to make a power grab. Killing, betrayal, hoarding of money and resources… at that point everyone just started looking out for themselves. The Hidden Villages can't survive without the gold and resources coming in from the capital countries, you know this. Once that stopped, everyone either abandoned their village or tried to rule their own country. Orochimaru, meanwhile, either killed every ninja he came across or kidnapped them to experiment on. Say what you will about the man, he said he wanted to know every technique in existence, and by the time he was done, he pretty much did. The only reason I managed to win against him was that I created a new technique with the Shinigami contract."
I stretched and cracked my back. I had been sitting in the office so long my ass had fallen asleep. It was a very weird sensation.
"By then, though, shinobi were persona non grata. They were killed wherever they were identified. The samurai from Tetsu no Kuni were the de facto peacekeepers; they were really good at countering ninja techniques by then. The only one they hadn't managed to kill was Orochimaru; he kept 107 bodies infected with the cursed seal. I know, I counted." I let a grim smile cross my face. "Over the years I had come up with quite a few imaginative ways to kill the fucker. It was nice being able to use all of those; and a few from my friends as well."
"How did you survive the purges then?"
"Liberal use of Hiraishin, mostly. Slowly, though, everyone in our group was either killed or they left and pretended to be civilians. We just wanted the fighting to be over. But it was never over, not for us. The last two years before I died I wasn't even in the Elemental Nations. I spent a year north of the mountains and another year south of the seas, and I learnt a lot from those lands. It was their teachings that finally led me to making the technique that took out Orochimaru. I called it Shinigami no Mai (Dance of the Death God)."
"Why did it take you so long to make?"
"Well, my group & I had managed to kill him on a couple of occasions, but all he did was pop up in another body from yet another hidden base. So I needed to make a technique that would force him to fight me over and over. The only way to do that is to get the help of someone to whom mortal hiding places mean nothing; hence the Shinigami. Even then, it's quite tricky to pull off. For it to work, it needs both parties to declare the other as their mortal enemy. Words have power, and naming someone your mortal enemy has a power of its own. Once the verbal contract is agreed, the Shinigami can be summoned at any time by either party and he can force the enemy to fight. Running is pointless, he can reach across time and space if needed, and force the confrontation. It took me a good month to find and prepare a suitable place to fight. Even then it took a lot of luck to pull off."
His eyes gleamed. "I see. So it was the Shinigami who was responsible for your time travel."
My mouth went dry, my hands clenched and I started to sweat. Raw terror seeped through my being as I recalled the terrifying journey through space and time. It took me a few moments to try to calm myself. And when I failed, I realized something horrifying. "You're not supposed to know that."
He took note of my trembling limbs and said slowly, "Do not worry; I'm not going to tell anyone…"
"You don't understand," I interrupted him, feeling the fear and the horror and I knew that somewhere the Shinigami was smiling his horrible smile full of sharp teeth, teeth that were meant to rip, to kill, to devour, to consume… I violently shuddered as I shook off the image of the God Who Embodied Death. "You're not supposed to know! That is not knowledge that mortals are supposed to have! And now he knows you know!" my voice had steadily risen in pitch and volume and I was hyperventilating, or pretty damn close to it. "You don't know what he can do! He can…"
The universe stopped. For a single second, Everything stopped. It had happened right before the time travel and realizing that sent me into a full blown panic. My body tensed in anticipation of the pain, the horrifying world ending pain to come and I was ready to plead away my soul to the Shinigami even though he would ignore me. And then to my infinite relief, everything started up again.
As far as warnings went, this one was pretty final.
I took great deep shuddering breaths as I felt my entire body fill with perspiration. After a few minutes of wiping myself off and gathering myself I turned to the wide-eyed Hokage. "Do not speak his name ever again. Do not as much as think of him, and maybe he will forget." Pff. Not bloody likely, but I wasn't going to tell the old man that. "And most importantly, never, ever, attempt the Shiki Fūin, or any other technique related to Him."
The Sandaime Hokage, the man once known as 'Kami no Shinobi', nodded in sincere agreement, his countenance filled with fear.
After a few minutes of silence, during which I looked out the window over the village and the Hokage meticulously filled and lit his pipe, he cleared his throat.
"Now that you are medically cleared for full training, how long will it take for you to get back to your best fighting shape?"
I smiled sadly. Without Kurama I would never truly be back to my best. "Another couple of months I think. Why?"
He nodded. "Good, good. That sounds like you will be ready in time." He handed me a large sized scroll. I opened it to reveal a bunch of names arranged in the form of…brackets?
"It this a tournament?" I asked, receiving an affirmative nod in return. I studied it further, finding my name in the mix in group two. There were a few names I recognized, but… "What's the catch?"
"This tournament is not for Chūnin. A few Tokubetsu Jōnin will be allowed if their specializations lie in combat, but it is a Jōnin tournament only."
I looked at the brackets ponderingly. "But why have the tournament in the first place? Does first prize get a signed copy of Icha Icha or something?"
He snorted in amusement. "No, they get a week-long vacation out to the Hot Springs Village. Although…"
"You're thinking about entering now, aren't you." I deadpanned. Pervy old man.
He coughed delicately. "Of course not. Don't be absurd," he said looking righteously affronted. I just kept staring at him. "This tournament is designed to keep some of our more…colourful shinobi from going stir-crazy."
I rolled my eyes at the very obvious change in subject, but went along with it. "So basically every shinobi then," I said pointedly. Just as pointedly, the old man appeared to ignore my insinuation about him being as weird as the rest.
"All Jōnin in the village at the time take part in the tournament, yes. This includes ANBU."
I perked up, interested. ANBU members were badass as a rule. If they were taking part in the tournament it was sure be a high level competition. But at the same time… "I don't remember any such tournaments from when I was younger. Are they open to the public?"
"Of course not. Why would we broadcast the strengths and weaknesses? No, this is a secret tournament; the only ones who know about it are the ones who will take part in it. Appropriate for a village that deals in secrets, don't you agree?"
I nodded. "What if someone who isn't invited finds out about it?"
His smile turned feral. "Why, they get to take part. Against Jōnin. Who don't hold back."
I winced. No doubt some poor hapless Genin had found out about it the hard way. I took a final look at the sheet and handed it back. "Fine, I'll be ready in time for them."
"Good." He took a final puff on his pipe as it went out, and as he cleaned it he asked me casually, "Would you like to join me for a drink?"
I blinked in surprise. This was a first. We had spent quite a few evenings together, but this was the first time he had offered to share a drink together. "Sure!"
The moment we entered the bar, every single eye turned to us.
The silence was not quite pin-drop, but then in a room full of ninjas it didn't have to be. The old man, looking as unruffled as he did during his rounds in the Tower, calmly walked past the moderately crowded stools to a corner table that just happened to be empty. After a moment I started to follow him sedately, having had to physically stop myself from scampering after him like I did as a child. I had had a momentary flashback - whenever he took me out as a child the reaction would be exactly the same; silence, followed by uncomfortable scrutiny. I was unpleasantly reminded about the darker side of my home village, and I can't say that I liked it.
As I settled down in the chair across from the Hokage I resisted the urge to squirm under the collective gaze of the bar patrons. That was when I realized something else. Our coming here tonight was no coincidence. "You're not going to induct me in ANBU."
He shook his head. "I have already been down that road. A few years ago a shinobi who had lost the last few people he cared about in a single night approached me and asked to be placed in ANBU. I granted his wish, and for the first few years he had an impeccable record. No missions failed, no comrades lost; he was the perfect shinobi. Then he started slipping, taking unnecessary risks, making poor calls. It is only by luck that he never managed to fail. By then, he had realized that by not dealing with his issues he was prevented from reaching his full potential. It took him longer to realize than I hoped, but he got there in the end. He tended his resignation from the ANBU, and I took it with no small amount of relief." He leaned forward again, clasping his hands in his signature style. "How good a teacher would you say Kakashi was?"
I frowned. Having known Kakashi for a long time I could not refute any of the Hokage's statements. Kakashi was a good guy who had lost his way for a while. Maybe if he had been on his game he could have smacked some sense into Sasuke before he betrayed us, but yes, Kakashi had not been done any favors by his stint in ANBU. And Sarutobi was a good enough leader to keep track of his mistakes and not repeat them. I had been counting on the anonymity that ANBU would have given me to carry out my plans; this would make it harder.
That didn't mean it wasn't the right decision though.
As our drinks were delivered and poured, I raised my saucer in a toast, "To meddlesome old coots."
"To disrespectful young brats a hundred years too early to challenge their elders," he shot back.
I smiled at that as we drank. As we placed our saucers down, another thought struck me. "You had already planned this. That was why you placed me in that tournament."
He nodded his assent, "Yes. You have lost everyone you cared about, and been through traumatic experiences. You would benefit from spending time in the village and getting to know other people your own age. They may not be your old comrades, but if you give them a chance I am certain you would not find a finer group of people."
I paused as I considered that. On the surface, it sounded callous; replacing your precious people with other, cheaper models. But such is life, I supposed as I took another sip from my saucer. You lose people along the way, whether they are grandparents, parents, friends or lovers; but you don't stop living your life. And part of that is finding other people to care about. As I looked back up I found the old man studying his own drink intently.
If there was one man alive who knew what it was like to lose people, it was the Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure.
"Good evening, Hokage-sama." A voice suddenly interrupted our separate musings from over my shoulder. I didn't exactly tense up, but I was extremely wary. I tried to use my peripheral vision with limited success; all I could see was the standard Konoha Jōnin uniform, same as I wore. I could have created a Kage Bunshin, but this wasn't exactly a hostile environment; which meant that this was a test of my reactions by the unknown ninja behind me. Shinobi greetings. Go figure.
"Ah, Genma-kun. How are you this evening?" the Hokage replied with his usual genial grandfatherly smile, allowing me to put a face and a name to the shinobi behind me. "Allow me to introduce the latest addition to our shinobi forces. This young man is Nanashi."
As he came around the table I noticed that he was missing his trademark senbon between his teeth, but his bandana was on the same as always. "Shiranui Genma," he introduced himself with a short bow. I inclined my head in greeting, but stayed silent. I could play games too. He chuckled. "The man with no name, no face and no voice. How very mysterious," he said with an easy smile; he had always been an easygoing character.
"Perhaps I just let my skill speak for itself."
"Oh? Was that a challenge?" his eyes glinted as his smile grew wider. "A man of action; someone after my own heart."
"And do you often give your heart away to men moments after meeting them?" I shot at him with a smile of my own.
He laughed at that, "As tempting as some of the fine specimens of Konoha's male population are, my heart I fear…" his voice dropped an octave as he gave an appreciative glance to a passing waitress, "…belongs to the ladies." The waitress, feeling eyes on her, turned, only to be met by Genma's gaze which had snapped up just in time and a roguish half-smile. She turned back away, giving nothing away; but there was definitely a slight extra sway to her hips that wasn't there before. I let out a snort of amusement as she walked away. He turned back to look at me, "Perhaps I will take up your challenge. Would you like to spar sometime?"
"Sure. I just got cleared for heavy-duty training, so it might be a little while."
"No problem; let me know whenever you feel up to it." He turned to the Hokage and gave a full bow. "Hokage-sama." He received a nod in return and departed.
"Well, what a nice coincidence. You wanted me to meet some people in the village, and someone just happens to go out of his way to be nice the same day. How very convenient!" I might have been laying the sarcasm on thick, but the manipulative old coot deserved it.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," he said as he delicately sipped from his saucer. He set it down as I let out a derisive snort. "I got the feeling that you knew him."
"I did. Once he found out my parentage, he was the one who started teaching me the Hi…ah, the flashiest technique I know."
"I see." He poured another saucer of the saké, poured it down his throat in a shot, and set his saucer down with a sense of finality. "I should get going."
"What, no more people for me to meet? No more friends dropping by? How about a blind date? Why not even an arranged marriage while you're at it?"
He smiled at my antics. "As a leader, it is important for me to stay away from places where my subordinates come to unwind. Tonight I made an exception, but it must remain a rule. But you should stay. Unwind for a while; I daresay you've earned it."
There was no doubting that. I nodded and I rose along with him, and as he put on his hat I bowed in farewell. Some of the curiosity went out of the room as the Hokage left, but people were still giving me looks, sizing me up. Thinking about what the old man said though, he was right. I had earned it. I quickly poured myself a shot. Tonight I let myself unwind.
Tomorrow I started heavy training.
24 hours later
Sage Mode wasn't working.
Naturally, this was troubling news. At the end of a gruesome training session today I sat down to meditate and feel the natural energy around me. As it turned out, I could feel the energy, sense it, but it flowed through me like water. It refused to enter my chakra coils. I was frowning as I walked back into the village proper, letting my feet carry me. Well, maybe it was because I had not signed the Toad Summoning Contract yet. After all, most ninjas are pretty much motionless when they fall asleep, and they didn't wake up to find themselves turned into stone. Or wake up at all, whatever. Yup, once I signed the Summoning Contract I would be a Sage again.
Although why that thought failed to fill me with comfort I did not know.
Still, it wasn't all bad though, I mused as I still garnered curious looks from the populace. Idly I wondered what their reactions would be like if I started to walking around wearing my dad's old trench coat. They would lose their shit; that alone made it a prank worth pulling. Nostalgia overcame me as I recalled some of the best pranks I had pulled as a kid, and one glorious week in particular when I went all out on a rampage. There was that ugly merchant who was inordinately proud of his mustache, which I had shaved off after finding him drunk one night, that one rude Academy instructor who mysteriously couldn't find any underwear one morning and was forced to go commando and sat down in something wet…–
"….and there was this one really mean fat cat that belonged to this equally mean old lady, so I found some itching powder and put it on him while he was asleep in the sun…."
- and then there had been another villager who had hissed at me rather rudely, so I had found an ordinary garden snake and put it in his room at night –
"and there was this other merchant who told me to get my ugly orange clothes out of his sight! Can you believe it!? He called orange ugly! So I dropped a bucket of orange paint on him when he entered his shop! Hehe, he was so mad, you should have seen the look on his face!..."
I had actually put my hand on the flap to enter the Ichiraku ramen stand (when had I decided to come here?) before I realized that the sounds were not just inside my head. I froze for a second, before slowly pushing the flap and letting my eyes widen at what I knew I would see.
Naruto and Iruka.
A very young Naruto (Sweet Log had I really been that scrawny?) and a very carefree, albeit increasingly horrified looking Iruka, but there was no mistaking the duo. My brain stopped, my heart stopped, even my breathing stopped for an eternal second before my mouth decided that this would be a great time to say something really stupid –
"Sensei!"
5 minutes earlier, Ichiraku Ramen Stand: Umino Iruka
Umino Iruka was exasperated. No, scratch that, he wished he was simply exasperated. He was so far beyond the end of his rope that he couldn't climb out of this stupid well that he had dug himself into.
And it was all the fault of one Uzumaki Naruto.
Of course, the little blond pranking terror was simply doing what he had always done best – irritate people into acknowledging him. The Hokage had come by on a couple of occasions before during the academy recess, and he had come earlier that day as well, to speak to the instructors regarding Naruto. All he asked them to do was give Naruto some attention and be there so that he could talk to them. And as usual, all the instructors had listened respectfully to their venerable leader while he spoke, before ignoring his words and letting their bigotry cloud their opinion of the young child.
Not that Iruka hadn't been guilty of the exact same thing in the not-too-distant past.
While it was true he had initially hated the blond, thinking him to be the Demon Fox, he had a funny feeling that each time the Hokage had come to their lounge that he was speaking to Iruka specifically regarding the blond. Just out of curiosity, he had tried to see the blond kid from a neutral standpoint, and he had been rather surprised and shocked at what he found.
Uzumaki Naruto was a normal child.
Albeit one who was starved of affection, or any kind of attention for that matter. But a normal child he was, and doing childish things to try and gain attention. Playing the fool got him more attention from his classmates than playing the studious child did, so he played the fool gladly. And slowly, but surely, Iruka saw more and more of himself in the young blond and before he knew it, he had taken Naruto out for a ramen dinner just so he could understand the blond better. The first dinner was understandably awkward, Naruto kept shooting him mistrustful glances, but he seemed to open up to him by the end of the second dinner. And now, it seemed that the kid just couldn't stop talking!
How he managed to keep jabbering while practically inhaling ramen was a mystery.
And it seemed he had been in a rather grouchy mood recently. He had all but declared war on whichever poor soul would try to pick on him, and Iruka had taken him out to try and understand what his issue was. It was then that he made the fatal mistake of asking what all pranks he had pulled, instead of why.
His jaw dropped lower and lower and his eyes spread wider and wider with every syllable that came out of Naruto's mouth. Some of the pranks he had pulled made him feel vaguely horrified, and he had been on the verge of stopping the kid for the sake of his own sanity when a voice suddenly said "Sensei!"
The voice itself sounded as if it belonged to someone who was his own age, but he found his head automatically turning to the newcomer, just as it did for a student who wanted to ask him a question. And he was surprised at what he saw.
The first thing that struck him about the stranger was his bright blue eyes; eyes he could have sworn he had seen before. The mask and the ponytail gave him (in Iruka's opinion) a frankly ridiculous look. He wore a standard Konoha Jōnin uniform; the only personalized item that he was wearing seemed to be a pair of orange fingerless gloves. But what was really weird was that the stranger had called him sensei, when clearly he was too old to have been taught by Iruka.
But that didn't stop him from looking at Iruka with a multitude of emotions, the most prominent one being shock. It was as if he had expected Iruka to not be alive at all (Iruka had no idea how close that was to the truth). But that emotion was nothing compared to what crossed his eyes when they were laid on his young student.
Automatically his hand dropped subtly to his kunai holster in case the man was thinking of attacking his young charge; that gesture alone spoke of how far his relationship with the jinchūriki had come along, but it seemed there was no need for it. A weird feeling of nostalgia and regret seemed to roll off him for a long moment, before Iruka finally replied to his curious statement "May I help you?"
He snapped his eyes away from the child, "My apologies, I thought I knew you." He then seated himself at the opposite end of the stand. The melancholic feeling was still in the air, but it was clear that hurting Naruto was not on the stranger's mind.
Iruka watched the man order two bowls of Ichiraku's finest, wondering what was so familiar about him but had no idea that he had been completely tuning out Naruto until the prankster pulled on his sleeve to get his attention. "Umm…. Iruka sensei do you know that guy?" Naruto asked in his normal (read: bratty loud) voice.
"What? No, of course not!" Iruka tried to rebuff his student, hoping he would get the message.
"Then why were you staring at him?" the young knucklehead asked with no tact whatsoever.
"No I wasn't!" Iruka exclaimed vehemently, but it was in vain as the blond stranger started chuckling.
"He's not as dumb as he looks, is he Umino-san?" the man said, looking over at them with a slight crinkle in his eyes along with a small movement of his ears that suggested he was smiling. "Hey kid, you like pulling pranks right? Well, did you know that your sensei over there was quite a notorious prankster when he was your age as well?"
"WHAAAAAAAAAT!? Iruka-sensei you pulled pranks!? What all did you do!? Please teach me sensei!"
Iruka's entire thought process at the moment consisted of 'Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit'. The poor man spent the next five minutes trying to calm the hyperactive Naruto down – a task in itself during normal circumstances, made all the more difficult now that Naruto knew about Iruka's similar past – telling him "No, it's not true," and "You shouldn't do it either". When he finally looked up from a silent but fuming (on a child it was just pouting) Naruto, he realized that the melancholy stranger had already finished his ramen and left.
'Who was that?'
Author's Note: So now the plot is moving well and truly forward. The divergence from canon takes place when Sasuke questions the Hokage's about the meaning of a village and reacts differently. While reading the manga I actually thought that he would react this way, and planned a fanfic from there. And Nanashi finally meets young Naruto, even though it was only for a second and he had done his best to avoid meeting the little hellion. Not that he was never going to be able to avoid Naruto forever.
Thanks for reading, and please review!
P.S. - I can't believe I forgot to include this, considering that this chapter would have been out 12 hours earlier. Tottenham are, and always will be, Shit.
That is all.
