Hey all, this is Drunkdragon12888 with yet another installment! Now to answer a question...
to IrukaPooka and Dragon Man 180: I know that it seems strange that Sasuke could all of a sudden gain the Mangekyou Sharingan, but you need to look at the psychology of it. Sasuke believes that he could not protect his family because he wasn't strong enough. So I know that I altered his psychology, but Sasuke feels that Naruto pushed him out of the circle because he wasn't strong enough. Therefore, in Sasuke's somewhat twisted mind, he believes that he killed him. I hope that answers this question.
Please read and review!
Chapter Six: The Lifting of the Seal
It was five a.m. in the morning. Hyuuga Hinata was walking to her students' training grounds, or, to be more accurate, to some place in the relative direction of her students' training grounds. She was dressed in a white t-shirt, which complimented her curves. On the back of the shirt was a red swirl. She wore short black pants that ended about a little higher than her knees. Her forehead protector was still around her neck. Below it was her jounin vest. It had almost been five years since her Naruto-kun died on the bridge. After hearing his death, Hinata had cried like she never cried before.
Naruto's death hit everyone really hard. Even the townspeople who had hated, cursed, and despised him came to his burial ceremony, although there was no body. But everyone knew that they were spared much grief compared to what Hinata went through.
She missed meals, training, everything. His name had been etched into the monument where there was a list of shinobis who gave their life to the success of the mission. Whenever she missed something, everyone knew that she was at the monument, crying her heart out.
But the death of Naruto had brought more than that though. Hinata changed. She was no longer the timid girl, but she was now outgoing and fearless. She would live on for her Naruto-kun, and only for him. She had sworn a vow of chastity, meaning that she will never marry and have sex with a man, or, more accurately, any man that was not the Uzumaki Naruto she knew. She felt that she belonged to him and that she would join him in the afterlife, still a virgin for him.
Her determination to live on was able to fuel her to train. She quickly became better than the rest of the Rookie Nine and her cousin's team. During the next Chuunin Exam, she became a chuunin. Two years later, she became a jounin at the age of seventeen and began to specialize in medicine. What really amazed everyone was that she had reached the position of jounin before anyone else from the Rookie Nine and Neji's team. The entire Hyuuga clan was amazed at her progress and wanted to reinstate her to the position of heiress of the clan. She kindly refused and gave it to Hanabi, her younger sister.
Hinata stopped walking and turned to face the monument of which her Naruto-kun's name was written. She knelt down by the monument and read his name. Suddenly, she felt the presence of another person. She quickly activated her Byakuugan and sighed. It was just Sasuke.
Sasuke had changed over the past five years. He was now an ANBU Squad Leader, much like her cousin Neji and his ex-teammate Rock Lee. He was dressed in his ANBU outfit and had his mask off in his right hand. His mask was that of a wolf. She took a look at the hand and saw the ring on it. Sakura and Sasuke had been married for two years now. Sakura was still dressed the same, except that her dress was a little longer and she was a full-grown woman now. Her hair was also a bit longer, though in the same style. She was also a jounin who worked at the Academy along with her best friend, Ino. Iruka still taught class, even though he was getting old.
Speaking of Ino, she was also married to Shikamaru. Come to think of it, everyone was either seeing someone, married, or engaged, including Rock Lee and Shino. Neji and Tenten were still dating though. Neji was just afraid to pop the question. There was no big change between the people then and now. They were still the same, except for a few attitude changes.
"Come to see Naruto today, Hinata-san?" Sasuke said.
"Hai, and please, call me Hinata."
"Though I honor your choice of staying chaste, I would think that Naruto would want you to be happy."
"I cannot marry anyone else, because he made a promise to come back to me." Hinata held out the necklace Naruto gave her that day. "And I intend to be there for him and only him when he comes back to me." Hinata then realized something. "Wait, aren't you supposed to be on a mission to help the Hidden Village of Grass overthrow their government in favor for one like ours?"
"I just got back. It turns out that when we got there, they had already overthrown it. Kawasaki Hatori had already led the rebels to victory. I also heard he's got a nickname: the Demon Shinobi. But if he ever comes here, it shouldn't be much of a threat. He's only leading rebels who want to change their government to one much like ours. But we should still be careful."
'Now all of the Shinobi Villages have gone through a revolution save Konoha, Wave, and Sound within a time period of five years. And each of them ended before the shinobi Konoha sent out arrived there. And each time, they all said that they were helped by a shinobi who went by the name of Kawasaki Hatori. What's going on with the world?' Hinata thought. Suddenly, there was a sizzling sound and smoke began to rise from Sasuke's neck.
"AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!!" He screamed, holding his neck. Hinata ran over to him and took a look at his neck. She was shocked. The cursed seal was slowly disappearing. After Sasuke had told them about Naruto's death, he also told them about the cursed seal he was given.
After a while, Sasuke could no longer feel the pain. "Hinata, what happened?"
"You're cursed seal... it's gone."
"Woohoo!!!" Sasuke jumped up with a smile on his face. "I'm free I tell you! Free!!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!" He just fell to the ground laughing in happiness. After a while he stopped and took a deep breathe. A part of his mind had realized something. "Wait, if my seal is gone, then does that mean that Orochimaru is dead?"
"It could be anything, Sasuke. Anything."
"Hmm. Well, I better go report about the mission and this to Tsunade-sama. See you later, Hinata. You might want to keep track of the time. If you're always late for things, then you might just turn out like Kakashi... minus that damn perverted mind of his."
"Alright, Sasuke. Bye."
Three Hours Later
"Damn it, Hinata-sensei is always late!" One male genin called out. "Its already eight o'clock!"
"I know Satoru, what gives?" the other male genin called. He turned to his female genin teammate. "What do you think causes Hinata-sensei to be late, Rin?"
"I don't know. Why don't you ask her yourself, Kyo?" Suddenly, a poof of smoke was seen.
"Gomen-nasai! See, I was trying to help this little boy find his mother when-," Hinata was cut off.
"LIAR!!!" All three of them called out. Hinata just shrugged and continued.
"Eh, worth a try. Anyway, we have another mission from Hokage-sama. There's some grass that needs weeding somewhere up north. Go talk to the Hokage for more information." Yes, she apparently inherited Kakashi's punctual lateness.
"What the hell, Hinata-sensei? We're ninjas now! We've got better things to do rather than go deal with some person's weed!" Kyo yelled out. He realized later that the sentence was very true, as they later discovered that he was growing marijuana.
"But you guys are only genin right now, and it would be pointless to send you out on a mission you can't possibly handle. So get to work." The three genin grumpily left the training area, leaving Hinata to be able to go to the monument again. She slowly walked to the dark-stoned monument. She was running the events of the day through her head. 'I wonder what caused the Cursed Seal to leave him... Could it really be that Orochimaru is dead?' She came up with strange but plausible reasons as to why the Cursed Seal lifted itself off of Sasuke. Hell, no matter how strange of an idea she came up with it seemed plausible, minus anything with Naruto in it. She just kept daydreaming about ideas, strange but plausible ideas.
None of her strange and plausible ideas were even close to being true since none of them involved Naruto.
Eight Hours Ago in the Village of Sound
Orochimaru was seen hurtling toward a wall. He hit the wall with a loud thud, causing a spider web of cracks to go through the wall. 'Damn that kid! He's only twenty and he's beating the crap out of me! How did he get this powerful in just twenty years?'
"Release your Cursed Seal on Uchiha Sasuke, and I'll let you live, for now." The attacker said. He wore black denim pants, black shoes, and a black leather jacket, zipping it up halfway. He had no undershirt so his chest was partly revealed and a necklace with a small Kyuubi design hanging from it. On his right hand was a metallic-looking red glove that completely covered his hand and ended up to about his wrist. On the back of the glove on the largest plate was the Konoha emblem. He had silvery hair and wore black sunglasses that effectively hid his electric blue eyes. His skin had a dark tan, effectively hiding his whisker-like marks on his face. It was Naruto. The five years he had lived after falling off of the bridge drastically changed him.
"How do I know that you'll keep your word?" Orochimaru hissed. He was damn tired from getting himself bounced around like a basketball. There was no way for him to fight off his attacker.
"You are in no position to bargain, snake." Naruto inwardly grinned. He was a genius, making up his own name and identity, Hatori Kawasaki. What was left was now to return to Konoha and take his place as Hokage. 'But that probably won't be very easy. I'll have to explain who I am and then I have to prove myself. At least I still have the Leaf forehead protector.' He thought.
"Alright, I'll do it. I'll take off my damn seal from Uchiha Sasuke." He quickly did some hand seals. "Seal Release no Jutsu!" Naruto could feel the chakra aura Orochimaru sent off. It was fairly weak. "It should take about five hours to remove itself from your friend." 'Who is this guy and what is his relationship to Sasuke?'
"I feel like I can't trust you, snake... I think that I'll make the people that you gave your damn seal to a little happier." Immediately, there was a red flame instead of a blue one over his glove and he seemed to slide toward Orochimaru in a blink. He was on the other side within a second. He extinguished the flame and Orochimaru crumpled to the ground. He quickly decapitated Orochimaru's head, placed a preservation jutsu on it, and put it in a leather bag, which he later put into his backpack.
'Well, I may as well go back to Konoha and hand in his head. No doubt that they will be happy that the world is now ever so slightly safer.' Naruto said. He then disappeared in a puff of smoke, thinking about a timid blue-haired shinobi for some reason, though he did not know why.
So Naruto is not dead! But how will the old gang take this? Will they accept him, or, believing that he is from some other part, try to stop him? And most importantly... How has Hinata fared through these five years? Find out next time in Chapter Seven: Lunchbreak at the Ichiraku!