A/N: 'Kay, I am so sorry about the whole Hinabi instead of Hanabi, when I was writing it actually I thought it looked kinda weird, but just brushed it off. You can see why I need a Beta, lol. (I'll revise the first chapter later…)
Also bout the Kono&Hana thing, at first it was because I needed extra characters, but now I rather like the idea, I think it's interesting. And just for the record Tsunade could make them Genin early if she really believed in their ability, at least I think that should be part of a Hokage's power…
Shikamaru's my favorite character, so I understand how it's like 'all man, no Shika-kun?' I'll try to fit him in, but he really doesn't have much of a part in this plot. Pairings may or may not be there, I plan to hint at some, maybe even develop one or two, but I'm not gonna promise anything…
Thanx for the advice from both my reviewers, I really appreciate it.
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to me only in my dreams…
Dim The Sun: Chapter Two
Naruto woke up with an obnoxious beeping in his ear and the sunlight shining directly in his face. Shooting up in his bed with his eyes now wide open he made a lunge toward his beside table and swiftly punched the big off button.
With a sigh he leaned back into the bed and just lay there for a few minutes for his brain to start waking up. The rays lit up his face, which looked to have a rather blank expression on it.
With a small groan he rolled onto his side and looked over towards his bedroom door, then his clock. Eventually, he repositioned himself so he was sitting at the edge of the bed with his feet dangling.
Standing up, rather shakily at first, he walked over to his small closet and grabbed the nearest set of clothes.
Taking his bright orange garments with him, he entered his short hall and crossed to the bathroom, diagonal from his bedroom.
Quickly stripping of his clothes and turning the water knobs, he stood under the showerhead, letting the warming water rain on him.
He didn't move for a few minutes, just paying attention to his barely throbbing head. Then he finally reached for his shampoo and soap.
In more or less than ten minutes he was out, rubbing a clean white towel over his dripping hair until it was just a bit damp.
He then proceeded to his kitchen after getting dressed, which was the room down the hall and next to the living room/front door.
Looking into his small refrigerator he pulled out milk and set it on the table. Then he took out a glass and poured a good amount, chugging it down as if he hadn't drunken for days.
With a kettle of water boiling, he took out a cup of instant ramen. Sitting, slumped over the table, he drummed his fingers impatiently, waiting for the water to boil, then three minutes more for the ramen to be ready to be devoured.
With his ramen finally eaten, his morning routine was completed, and he ran out the door, trying to tie on his forehead protector as he jogged.
As was expected the streets were just starting to fill up, so there weren't too many people, which was all very well for him. The less villagers the better. The ones that were bustling around gave him annoyed glances, and others just tried ignoring him with a scowl on their faces. Naruto ignored it, pulled on a bigger grin, but secretly felt a bit better, since compared to before, there was a lot less hatred to be felt.
Finally making it to the bridge he saw Sakura leaning against the bridge, looking over the edge with a seemingly thoughtful expression on her face. Naruto decided against interrupting her thoughts, being the last day together as a team he'd prefer if they didn't start it off with punching and yelling (On Sakura's part of course).
After only an hour of waiting, Kakashi appeared with his usual poof of smoke. Naruto just stared at him in wonder, Sakura looked curious. "Wow, you're actually early for once… well, early for you at least…" Naruto said in a surprised voice.
Kakashi sweat-dropped at his students' shock. "I'm not always late…" he said seriously. Naruto just snorted and waved it off, as Sakura muttered how she could be stuck with him as a sensei.
Kakashi then cleared his throat and took out his favorite book. "We have a mission today, D-rank. We have to harvest one Kimifuji Suki's carrot garden. Shouldn't take more than an hour and a half. After I'll treat you two to ramen." Naruto, who had at first frowned at the mentioned D-rank mission, grinned widely. "RAMEN! Yeay. Let's go!"
Sakura grinned at his usually annoying cheer, and followed as he led the way. Kakashi also followed, knowing full well in a few seconds Naruto would realize he didn't know where the Kimifuji house was.
The mission, as all D-rank missions were, was extremely easy and mostly dull. The only problem for Naruto was some carrots refused to come out of the ground, for him at least, and he pulled so hard that most of the time he was on his back and a few times he hit his head against rocks. Good thing Naruto's head was pretty thick (not in an insulting way.), otherwise he'd be having headaches the rest of the day.
The whole time Kakashi watched and listened (Jounin don't really help with these kind of missions, it'd hurt their egos…) to Naruto chatter about everything and nothing. Sakura was strangely silent most of the time, smiling softly at some of Naruto's jokes and commenting occasionally.
The mission took about four hours, instead of Kakashi's calculated one and a half. They spent one hour collecting, one hour washing, one hour pealing (Kakashi had to help or else it've been longer), and one hour of waiting because Suki had insisted, after they were done, that she bake them a carrot cake as thanks for the unnecessary washing and pealing (which Suki had insisted on in the first place).
The cake was divided into three and wrapped up so they could eat it later on. Naruto was still contemplating if he should actually eat it. He'd never had carrot cake before and it didn't look all that appetizing to him.
The thoughts of gross orange cake was put to the side as soon as he remembered Kakashi's promise of ramen, and he started skipping cheerfully, humming happily to himself. Sakura and Kakashi laughed quietly at Naruto's antics, and just realized how much they really would miss the energetic blonde.
When both finally entered the small ramen booth they found that Naruto had already ordered and was sitting on his favorite stool. They sat on either side of him and ordered for themselves.
The lunch of ramen went pretty uneventful until Naruto started to choke, thankfully Sakura quickly started patting his back and he recovered. She gave him a disapproving stare and said he should eat slower. He just nodded and started eating his third bowl again, but at a slower pace.
After his fourth bowl of ramen, Naruto decided it was enough and he sighed contently.
"Naruto, I'd like to talk to you. Sakura, meet us at the bridge in fifteen minutes, okay?" Both of his students nodded and the two males slipped off their stools and started to walk the streets.
Back at the ramen booth Sakura was still picking at her second bowl when the waitress, Ayame, slipped the bill in front of her bowed head. Sakura blinked at it at first. "What! Kakashi, Naruto, you cheapskates..." She grumbled darkly and she fished her yen out of her pocket, she was sure they had left before her on purpose.
Kakashi and Naruto walked in silence, Naruto wondered if his sensei was just doing it for dramatic effect, he liked to be melodramatic just as much as Gai sometimes, of course in a cooler way….
They finally stopped before the large, dark rock that was a memorial for all the ninjas of Konoha that had sacrificed their lives for the village. Naruto watched as Kakashi just stared intensely as it, until he finally turned to him.
"I wanted to tell you, Naruto, that your father would have been proud. You've grown a lot in person and in strength. Both Sakura and me will miss you, best of luck in your new team." With that the copy-ninja patted the blonde's hair and looked back at the rock.
Naruto sighed, 'What a show off.' , butinwardly Naruto was very touched, it showed too, as a bright smile lit up his face and he hugged his (technically now former) teacher around the middle.
After about five minutes they walked to the bridge, where a silently fuming Sakura soon exploded at them for making her pay for the bill.
The rest of the day, Sakura and Naruto decided to spend hanging out (after Sakura had cooled off…). Just talking and walking around the village. They ended up watching the sunset up on the Hokage Monument. The moment was bittersweet, in Naruto's opinion, but he tried to enjoy it all the more for that reason.
The next morning Naruto slept in. With no missions or prearranged training he felt the need to take it easy. Finally when it was near ten o'clock, and he could no longer fight to stay asleep (because of the troublesome sun), he woke and changed into a more simple attire than his usual orange jumpsuit (white spiral T-shirt and black shorts).
At first he thought to maybe just read a few scrolls and laze around his apartment. But soon he got bored and he grinned when an idea came to mind.
At the Hokage Tower, Naruto enthusiastically waved at the ANBU guards he had come to know. They were pretty stoic most of the time, but were nice him whenever he came around. In truth, they really did love it when he came, it put an interesting dent in the otherwise dull day.
Under their masks they both grinned and let him pass by them and through the Hokage office's oak doors. They pricked up their ears so that they'd be able to hear every little word (though they mostly needn't do that, since both the Hokage and Naruto were usually loud with each other.) .
Naruto burst through exclaiming a loud "Ohayo, Baachan!" to see the once-sleeping blonde woman jump up in surprise and reflexively throw a kunai, which missed and went through the slightly open doors, imbedding itself into the hall's wall.
Naruto blinked and frowned slightly. "Geez, what a welcome." He said sarcastically. Seconds later he had a huge bump on his head. "Itai! Cranky, old hag!" This time he managed to dodge her fist, which put a big dimple it the floor where he'd been standing.
"How dare you just burst into my office like that! I was-" "Busy sleeping." Naruto finished for her, though he knew that wasn't what she was about to say. Tsunade silently fumed and tried to collect her calm. Naruto watched with little interest and sat down in a nearby chair.
She finally sighed and her face turned to inquisitiveness as she turned to her 'little brother'. "What do you want, brat?" she asked with an other sigh at the end. Naruto played with a loose string on the chair before looking up with a small grin, unlike his usual 'fox-boy' grins (which were usually fake…).
"I'm bored, Tsunade-baachan, what should I do?" Tsunade looked thoughtful for a moment before she grinned widely. The grin kind of alarmed Naruto, but he just stared back expectantly.
"Why don't you spend the day with me, and see what a Hokage really does." Naruto nodded neutrally, it gave him something to do, but from her tone… But it'll be a learning experience, and since it has to do with his dream…
So the rest of the day, until Tsunade sent him home at eight, they did paperwork (mostly Naruto, since Tsunade had a short attention span for this kind of stuff), went from meeting to meeting, visited the hospital where injured shinobi were, checked up on the Academy to see how the children were doing, and assigned missions.
Naruto had to admit, while he tiredly walked home, Hokage had a lot of responsibility. Paperwork was boring, but manageable, meetings were stressful, seeing others injured was kind of depressing, just watching the kids running around made you tired, and assigning mission took lots of thought to decide the best shinobi for the job, the wrong choice could be enough to cause death.
Lots of responsibility, but he knew he could take it.
As he unlocked the door to his small apartment he felt his body scream for his nice comfy bed. He fell asleep in his day cloths, right on top of the covers.
The next day he got up like he would of if he had a mission or training. He had decided during the day before that he'd go into the forest and work on his taijutsu, partly as for a reason not to come back and help with Tsunade's paperwork.
Morning routine done, orange jumpsuit on, and he was out the door. He quickly decided to go by rooftop, since today it seemed that a lot more people than usual were on the streets.
On his way to his usual private training area he saw a few people he knew walking along. There was Ebisu, who had nervously entered a bookstore, Naruto snorted softly at that, and he also saw Kiba running down the street with his dog, he was in such a hurry, it seemed, that he could hardly dodge other pedestrians.
When finally Naruto made it to his secret training spot, a small clearing a little into the forest, next to a small stream. At first he just kicked at a thick tree for a while, then when his leg started to get sore he went to the other one then to punching the tree. When it was around noon he stopped to drink some of his water and rest.
While he rested he faintly heard some footsteps and all his senses were on alert. He threw a kunai at where he thought the intruder was, when he looked he saw that the kunai had sailed passed and into a tree. The intruder was none other than Kurenai. Naruto blinked in surprise and gasped silently.
"Kurenai-san, I'm so sorry!" Naruto said. He didn't feel like '–sensei' was in order just yet. Kurenai just smiled and held out a plain piece of paper. "It's the time and place where we'll meet tomorrow. Please remember to come on time," Kurenai said, referring to the paper he took from her.
Naruto nodded and pocketed it and went to fetch the projectile. "Thanks," Naruto said as he turned around, only to see a puff of black air in place of the female Jounin. "Kage Bunshin…" Naruto stated quietly before making his own.
Rest time's over, back to training.
Without a word the three shadow replications attacked and the real Naruto started blocking and countering.
Five hours later, Naruto was exhausted and had finally defeated the last replication. Drinking the rest of his water, now lukewarm from sitting in the sun, he stood up with a grunt. He silently walked to his favorite ramen stall, thoughts of the next morning weighing down his thoughts.
The next morning Naruto woke at four o'clock. A good two hours than he usually did. The note Kurenai's Bunshin had given him told him to come at five o'clock. An hour to do his usual morning ritual was more than enough time, but somehow he managed to have to run while reading the directions, he sort of dozed off in the shower…
The meeting place was on the other side of town, next to a lone old store that had long gone out of business. Kiba and Ino were already there, Kiba looking alert, unlike Ino who was trying to rub away the sleep from her eyes. They were both leaning against the building's side, though Ino was sitting and Kiba standing.
He grinned when he realize their new sensei hadn't come yet and stopped just in front of Kiba, trying to catch his breath. "Breakfast?" Ino asked, a yawn in her voice. Naruto looked at her in confusion, since the question seemed to be directed to him.
"Huh?" he questioned dumbly, and Kiba couldn't help but snicker. "I nodded off while I was eating my breakfast, and only got here a minute ago since my home's not that far from here," Ino explained, much more patiently than she would of if she was completely awake.
Naruto simply shook his head. "Shower." Ino's mouth formed a small 'o' shape and nodded.
"Good, we're all here!" Naruto jumped slightly at the sudden voice. He turned around and looked really shocked to see Kurenai there. She smiled warmly at his expression. "You're not used to having your sensei come on time, are you?"
Naruto nodded and blushed slightly. Now with all four of them there it was actually official. Naruto had a new team. How troublesome…
A/N: Yeay, finished! And I met my goal of at least 2500 words minus the a/n's. Next chapter I'll try for 3000 words. I hoped you liked. See, no Sakura bashing /pats self on back/
Hope you liked it. Haha, I just can't wait to write the good stuff.
Review; tell me what you liked, disliked or what should be improved.