Thanks so much for the reviews! I love reviews, it makes me post up chapters faster! XD Even though I should be doing Physics Honors homework.
Disclaimer: Hey didn't add this yet, you know the drill. I don't own Naruto, if I did I'd add more NarutoxSakura moments don't you think?
"…"- talk
"…"- italics- thoughts, memories, flashbacks, inside the mind
"…"- Kyuubi
…- Interference
(…)- Author note/ Reminder
Ok, screw previews because they never come out next chapter. This story tends to write itself.
This scene is hard to do without a POV or a first person look. I decided it will change per day. Just for reference this chapter begins right before Sakura wakes up and has her episode with Naruto and right (during) or after some Rookie Nine help Konohamaru.
Remember first day is one POV, the next day is another!
Enjoy D
"Did you see what happened at Naruto's house?
"Yeah, I did. Those crazy bastards"
"I know, how could they be such traitors"
I couldn't help, but notice the conversation right behind me. I just went to Ichiraku for a bowl of ramen. Ever since Naruto's death, people have been talking about the rebellion of certain ninjas and accusing some of treason. It's good sometimes to over hear at least some ninja's talk about Naruto nicely
Or that's what I though
"Yeah, I heard some of the genin that the poor bastard fox knew protected his house"
"I know, I heard it was that genius kid Shikamaru"
"That new Chuunin? How the hell can he be a genius if he sided with the fox brat"
"That's not all, it included Neji Hyuuga of the Branch House"
"That kid is fucked over. There is no way the Branch House or even the Hyuuga family household will stand for one of their own siding with that fox brat"
"I know! Also, the Sondaime's grand…"
Kami-sama, I actually thought some people of Konoha would stand up for Naruto. However, you can't really blame them for saying that, but not even Naruto deserved this. He wasn't respected by the villagers before his death…
And they just disrespect him more when in death
This is truly a sad day, not only for Naruto, but for Konoha
"Oi, Kakashi-san, would you like some more ramen?"
I looked at the waitress. My thoughts being derailed by her quick interruption. I just finished a bowl and I really wasn't that hungry.
However…
"Sure thing, Ayame-san"
She smiled at me and I handed her the bowl. She took it from me and asked me what kind I would have now.
Beef? No, just had that
Pork? I'm not a fan of pigs
Testicle? I heard it was good, but not today
Miso? Well, for Naruto…
"One miso ramen please"
She looked at me surprised and then bowed her head, I saw a few tears drop out before she wiped them with her sleeve and looked up and smiled at me
"Sure. One Special Naruto Miso Ramen coming right up!"
I couldn't help, but smile
After leaving the Ichiraku, I decided to head over to where Naruto's old apartment used to be. After hearing the reports from several people about the small act of treason by ninjas, I decided to check it out myself for once. I was walking up to Naruto's apartment building before I heard a familiar voice
"Yosh!"
Soon, I heard a couple of punches and a couple of bodies hitting the floor. Seeing soon that it was Gai's kid. I realized there wasn't a danger at all. I decided to watch from a distance what the kids were doing.
"Mendokuse(1), now we have to fix up Naruto's apartment"
"Shikamaru, why is this so troublesome to you"
"Ino, you know everything I think is troublesome"
I saw that blonde girl's temper rise up, oh you don't want her mad Shikamaru
"Now now, Ino and Shikamaru, no fighting. Let's just go see what damages have been done inside. Shall we?"
That girl with her buns up high was very good at negotiations between those two. It seemed to calm Ino and Shikamaru down.
I realized who was there at the scene. There was the genius kid, Shikamaru, who was the only one promoted. I think that hot headed girl is Ino. Asuma was always telling us that those two always bickered. Didn't they have another person on their team?
"Hey, Shino, where have you been"
"Sorry, Shikamaru, there was some trouble on the other side of the apartment complex. More rioting. I had to calm them down"
Oh, that's where
"Hey, don't forget us too, Shino"
Hey this is something special.
"He may have beaten me in the preliminaries, but that doesn't mean he isn't my comrade. Right, Shikamaru?"
Seeing a smile on Shikamaru's mostly gloomy, 'this is too troublesome' face was really a rare site to see.
"Yeah, your right Kiba. He is our comrade"
"Yeah, we can't stand here and watch Naruto-kun's house get destroyed along with his possessions"
"Yeah, your right Hinata"
That Hyuuga girl. I saw her confidence get boosted up with Naruto's cheer during the prelims, but now her confidence feels like its all over the place.
What did Naruto do to these kids…
"W-who are you guys?"
Was that…Konohamaru-chan? He's here too. Was he really good friends with Naruto? Speaking of which, I've always seen him around him some days.
"We are just friends of Naruto, he was something meaningful for each and every one of us. How bout you?"
"He was my Oyabin(2)"
"Oyabin?"
"Hai, my Oyabin. He says I have to fight him to become Hokage…now he's not here…"
"Aww poor Konohamaru-chan, come here. I'll tell you what"
"Ino, what troublesome things are you working up now?"
Yeah, what are you up to now…
"I'll tell you what Konohamaru-chan…you want to become Hokage right?"
"Yes! With all my heart, just like Naruto-oyabin!"
"Then you have to defeat us…all of us, because on your way to becoming the strongest. You have to defeat all of us"
"Ah….YES! I will do my best! From now on you and I are rivals you guys! I shall go train now!"
I saw Konohamaru's eyes open up and him run away. He's going to be one of the strongest one day. I'm sure he will be.
"Ino, you know your something else"
"Shut up, Hinata, the kid can't lose his dreams. We all can't"
They all seemed to agree with Ino and smiled at the comment.
Your right you can't give up your dreams. They can always have a chance to bloom if you never give up. Just like Naruto.
"Hey, lets go inside already and fix up the place"
"Hey, matte(3) Shikamaru"
I should go with them to see how much damage the villagers have done to Naruto's apartment. However, I still have one more student with me. I shall check up on her.
(Bonus: Inside Naruto's house. Shikamaru)
We were at the door and prepared to go in, door was barely hanging from a hinge and swinging openly. I turned around to the group
"Shino go check the place around so we won't get sneaked up upon. Kiba since you're the fastest go to the hospital and check on Chouji for me. Come back when you get his condition and, Shino, come up when you make a couple rounds and make sure some riots are not around here."
They nodded at me and Shino walked down the stairs and Kiba hopped roof to roof towards the hospital. The rest of us decided to go inside the house. Hinata was the one to opened the door and walk in.
"Oh god, this place is a mess"
Hinata was right, this place is a mess. Curtains have been stripped from the windows, the rings that held them are still there. His kitchen raided and destroyed, the refridgerator was opened with nothing inside, the door hanging by a hinge. His kitchen table was snapped in half, one half is stuck onto the wall on my left. The cabinets are all opened, completely empty except for the broken plates and glasses left in side. The windows, he only had 3, cracked or broken. One was completely torn out, leaving a huge hole in the wall. He had only a single chair, I can see the markings on the floor when an object has not been moved. There was trash and broken glass strewn all over the floor. Mud, grass, and many other disgusting things left around as a sign of the hatred for our comrade. Unfortunately this was only half his room. The other half lay the bathroom and his bedroom.
"Isn't this horrible, Shikamaru?"
"Yes, Ino, this is something I could not expect"
"Don't feel so discouraged. I don't think we'd expect any of this"
"But, Tenten, why would someone do something like this?"
"Lee, I don't know"
We tracked through the mess, having a respectable silence while we walked. Our conversations having no heart and lasting only a few words. It was a silence that you would leave when you honored someone who died. This room, which had once belonged to Naruto, trashed and destroyed. We couldn't not help, but leave an eerie silenced as we walked. Hinata had been the first one in, she was ahead of us. She opened the door to Naruto's room and saw something that we could not believe.
"Minna-san!(4) Look at this!"
"Hinata? Daijobu(5)?"
We ran all walked in and looked inside the room. Everything had been completely destroyed. His bed was broken in pieces that were impossible to count, the pieces spread throughout the room. His pillows and blankets had not been found, I'm predicting they were taken to be sold for money. His mattress completely gone, probably taken out to be sold too. The window on my right side, where Naruto's bed was probably, completely gone, a giant hole left there. The whole room smelt like urine, the smell was so horrible and pungent that I'm guessing someone took a piss here quite some time ago, and it was more the one person. Such a disrespectful and putrid act towards someone who has just recently died. However, it wasn't the putrid smell of urine that disgusted us, nor the broken walls and mirrors across the room. Or the smell of ashes from his burned possessions in the corner of the room. No what brought horror to us in the room was what was on the wall.
Written in paint, a hateful message of pain and death towards Naruto. My mind could read them all within a blink of an eye.
"Good riddance"
"Hope you enjoy hell you bastard"
"I hope that Uchiha kid ripped out your guts"
"Death to the Fox!"
"You deserved to die, ever since you were born. Only if this could happen sooner"
With each insult, I felt hatred towards the civilians. Each sentence I read, it just became anger and hate. The more I skimmed over the more I wanted revenge for Naruto. I just wanted to hit at least one villager. I was about to dash out to fufill this impulse, but a hand reached out and held me still
"Shikamaru, calm down. I know you want to go hurt someone right now, trust me we all do. However, we must honor Naruto's death and let this go"
"Neji! Honor him? This is not how we honor our fallen friend. Damnit, we can't just stand here idly and watch this hatred go by. Look at this!"
I didn't know what was taken over me, this feels like Chouji all over again. When I found out a couple days ago about him. I thought he wasn't going to make it and this rage built up inside of me. I couldn't keep my cool composure and I couldn't think straight. I felt like I was going to lose it.
"Shikamaru, we can't do anything now. If we hurt the villagers we will only breed more hatred. We must do what I saw Naruto do…"
"Ino…what do you mean?" Tenten asked
"Months ago, I was following Naruto, so he could lead me to Sasuke-k…Sasuke"
I looked at everyone's faces, a slight depression fell onto the air. Neji had griped his shoulder and Tenten was helping him out. He only got out of the hospital today, suspended until the injury on his shoulder heals. Chouji was still in the hospital under critical condition. He's conscience, but just needs lots of rest.
"When I followed him, I saw kids throwing stones at Naruto and their parents sometimes also throwing rocks and telling him to go away. But Naruto never looked so lonely or down trotted, he always kept his head held up high and ignored the people. We may not know why he was so hated by the villagers, but I know it wasn't his fault! Just that, we must do what he did and not fight back, just ignore the villagers…"
For once, Ino had taken my IQ and used it to her capacity.
"Ino, your right. I shouldn't be like this. We should do as Naruto did and, for now, ignore the villagers."
"Your absolutely right, Shikamaru. Now lets say we rebuild the apartment for Sakura-san!"
Lee made a great suggestion, we decided to fix up the apartment as a gift, and a memorial to Naruto. I hope Sakura would be proud of us. Seeing how much is done and the damages, we'd just be about finished before Naruto's funeral. This is our present to you Naruto.
"Yosh! Decided then, hands in minna-san!"
We all put our hands down and each of us said something
"For Naruto" Ino put in
"This is for our comrade" I said
"He showed me true destiny" added in Neji
"Helped me survive as a ninja" Lee said
"Showed me true strength" Tenten said
"Had confidence in me" Hinata added
This is what you mean to us Naruto, don't forget it wherever you are
"Yosh, if we can't finish this. We'll do 1000 pushups!"
(Day 2)
"How is she, Shizune?"
"Oh, Tsunade-sama, Sakura-san is fine at the moment, she's been in a coma state ever since that meltdown yesterday"
"Hai, I'm not surprised. The theory around Naruto's jutsu is that his memories are overloading hers. I think at the moment she's straightening out her persona from his persona."
"Tsunade-sama, how do you think she's doing it?"
"Shizune, I'm not sure. My bets is she's talking to Naruto right now"
"Naruto! How is that possible?"
"Using the effects of the jutsu, it would be possible to take form inside her mind. Because this is under almost the same circumstances as Yondaime's technique. The chakra should take form inside the host's body. Since Naruto had transferred his chakra into Sakura's body, this would almost make it the same thing as Yondaime's. However, Naruto had brought it up a level somehow and allowed him to channel his own chakra into Sakura along with the power of the Kyuubi. So by theory, the image inside of Sakura is mostly Naruto."
"Mostly?"
"Yes, Naruto had told me before that he had to release the Kyuubi and seal it within himself to be able to transfer his chakra into Sakura's, Naruto knew of Sakura's chakra limit and how much she could hold, but if he had brought Kyuubi as a whole along with Naruto then she would go over her chakra limit because unlike Naruto's seal, she did not have one. It would be all of Naruto's chakra along with hers and then adding in the Kyuubi's chakra into her. That's quite an over load of chakra into a single body. Like earlier when Naruto had practice the Rasengan for the first time, he kept getting Chakra burns from focusing too much chakra into a single point. Now in Sakura's case if Kyuubi's Chakra had entered her, it would be severe burns to her Coil system and that could lead to a very painful life because along with Kyuubi is the self healing powers. She would burn herself and then heal, but she couldn't prevent the pain.
"Sugoi(6), Naruto-kun planned ahead didn't he?"
"Yeah he did. But the pain he's going through. Because he merged himself with the Kyuubi, he's barely keeping himself together, if he falls apart the overload of chakra will appear and Sakura will be in huge amounts of pain. Naruto is basically a gate between the fighting Kyuubi within himself and Sakura."
"Do you think Naruto will someday lose control?"
"No, Naruto will never lose control. Because he's protecting someone close to him, and he will never let that happen"
(Day 3 Sakura wakes up)
"Here let me see"
Tsunade-sama walked up to me and checked my shoulder. I heard a slight gasp from her when she brought down my shoulder part of my dress
"Sakura…where did you get this?"
"Get what Tsunade-sama?"
"This…bite mark?"
"Do you mean, it was really real?"
"Explain yourself, Sakura"
I proceded to tell her the events that transpired in my dreams, or what I thought of as dreams. The images I saw of Naruto, my other half, and everything I could remember from my dream. Tsunade-sama seemed to be all ears and eager to listen to my story.
"I see how Naruto did it then"
"Tsunade-sama?"
"Naruto is a human part of you now, he's part of your mind. You now have the power to visit voluntary into your own psyche. It must've been the side effects of the technique because Naruto could do it himself"
"What do you mean, himself? You mean…"
"Yes, I'm guessing Naruto told you himself. Twelve years ago the demon was not destroyed, but Yondaime sealed him within a baby, and that was Naruto. If you could recall his memories, you can see the pain he felt ever since he's been growing up from all the villagers."
"But why don't the children know? Why didn't I know?"
"Sondaime created a law that no one is to speak about the Kyuubi being sealed within Naruto. However the attitudes towards the boy could not be so easily stopped. So the impressionable younger generation, you guys, grew up with your parents attitude towards Naruto, hating him and believe he's a bad person."
"I see. However I believe the people should have the right to know, the younger generation should know. Especially our generation."
"You can tell them today then, Sakura-san. His funeral is today. It will be held in a few hours please get yourself
ready if you can get out"
"Hai"
I watched Tsunade-sama's back as she walked out of my room and into the hallway. Closing the door behind her. Today is a beautiful sunny day. It doesn't seem like the weather for losing a friend, but I think Naruto was the exception, as he always was, to the rule.
I walked over to the closet to find that my clothes have been neatly washed and pressed and hanging now in the closet. I snuck off the hospital gown, though the green does match my eyes. But I don't think it's the right style. I put on the clothes that where in the closet and fresh new undergarments as well. I'm guessing Tsunade-sama thought ahead to more basics. After all, you are supposed to be naked under those gowns.
After putting on my clothes, I walked to the table besides my bed and grabbed my hitai-ate. It was between the flowers everyone had been giving me. Ino's daffodils were standing in a vase next to it. I took it with me into the bathroom, so I could use the mirror to straighten it out.
I looked into the mirror in front of me, I felt like I was back inside my mind. Looking at my inner self, but this time when I look at myself in the mirror, I notice something different. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what had happened, but I saw in my own eyes something different. I saw someone different in the mirror, not the same girl I remember a couple days ago. Not the same girl I saw when I stood at the mirror in my house getting ready to watch the Chuunin exams. Something different happened in me, something strange. And I didn't know what.
I strapped my hitai-ate to my forehead instead of using it as a bow. Just like how Naruto did it.
Yes, something did change in me.
I like it
References:
(1)-Troublesome. Shikamaru's famous line
(2)-Oyabin- That's what Konohamaru calls Naruto usually if you didn't know.
(3)-Matte- wait
(4)-Minna-san- Everyone
(5)-Daijobu- Are you ok?
Well another 7 pages done. I'm not dead yet, just been having problems lately so it was hard to get the story rolling. That's why halfway down the story it doesn't feel different, but I'm still proud of how far this is still going. And I will finish it! So leave me a review!