Naruto giggled.
He knew it really wasn't the time but he couldn't help it, his companion was so…cute.
The 12 inch tall fox glared balefully at him. They were in Naruto's mindscape, standing before the sealed gate, and the miniature fox was getting very annoyed. He momentarily considered biting the boy's ankle, but decided that would juts be demeaning himself.
What they saw through the gate was an odd sight, looking something like a sunset. The demons chakra simply sat there, behind the seal, a sea of red energy.
Naruto sighed, he had been hoping there might be a way to draw on this ocean of chakra, but with the fox now on his side of the seal, there was no one to push it through, so the chakra just slowly leaked out.
As a consolation prize, he got to annoy a tiny demon fox. Within the mindscape the demon's form was maintained by his chakra, so without it he reverted to the smallest and most efficient form possible. It also made him hilariously cute.
Needless to say, the demon wasn't appreciating the humor.
In what had hours ago been the hidden sound, the Fifth Hokage surveyed the destruction around her. Lives had been lost, sacrifices made, but Orochimaru was dead.
She turned and walked back into the temporary hospital, and started to tend to the ever arriving wounded.
With the death of their leader, the majority of the sound-nins had immediately given themselves up. Unfortunately, there had been no sign of Sasuke, but it had been a perfectly orchestrated invasion.
Except for two things.
The first was the odd disturbance at the northern gate. Three shinobi had been badly injured, one was still missing, but none killed. She had examined them herself, the wounds on both Shikamaru and Chouji were from an unknown source, but Ino looked to have been cut once across the back with some large sharp object. It wasn't a cut designed to kill, too shallow, and it showed too much forethought to be an accident.
Chouji had three deep gashes in his back and Shikamaru looked to have had his arm almost torn off by some huge hand but these wounds to were non-lethal. Whoever attacked them had been holding back. She was waiting for one of the three to regain consciousness and give her a better picture of what happened, as Gaara had been very restless since the news of his sister's disappearance.
The other problem, and honestly, the one really bothering the Hokage was the discovery of the necklace. Hyuuga Neji was in the hospital with a rather bad case of chakra burn from using Kaiten too much, and had mentioned in passing that he had found a necklace that looked exactly like the one Naruto used to wear.
Now, when Hyuuga Neji said 'exactly like', he didn't mean 'really similar to' like most people did, he meant exactly like. Tsunade had immediately demanded he show it to her, and he had. It was the same necklace.
Somehow, weeks after his death, Naruto's necklace was showing up in the hidden sound.
Something wasn't adding up. Tsunade wasn't sure what it was yet, but it was there, that nagging feeling that she'd missed something…
She was broken out of her thoughts as a group of civilians were brought in; they had been in a building crushed by Manda.
Temari was floating. Her body was weightless, surrounded by nothingness. Sight showed nothing but blackness. Ears heard nothing but…cursing?
Temari slowly opened her eyes, blinking into what felt like very bright light. Once she was mostly aware and started to take some notice of her surroundings, she realized she was sitting, leaning against something and couldn't move her arms. She was now waking up very quickly.
Abruptly, the cursing she had been hearing stopped, and her eyes finally focused just in time to see a set of dark red eyes looking into hers.
Suddenly, she remembered. She had lost in the forest but then…Her eyes widened in fear, there was only one reason to keep a shinobi alive and awake. Torture them for information.
In a panic, Temari desperately tried to bite off her tongue, but suddenly felt a hand shoved into her mouth, so she bit it instead.
Naruto grimaced. He knew what her initial reaction would be, but still, his hand was in a world of pain. He grabbed her head with his other hand and forced her to look at him again.
"First thing," Naruto said in a rather strained voice, "I am not going to torture, kill, violate, abuse or harm you, so for the love of god stop biting my hand!"
Temari dug her teeth in for another second, and then let go, glaring at who she now realized was her captor. Naruto shook his hand to get the blood flowing again, then smiled politely at the struggling girl.
"My name is Fushichou Naruto, and yours is?"
Temari glared, "Screw you."
Naruto's polite smile turned into a grin as he raised his sword and brought it down sharply.
Temari screamed.
He stopped the blade less than an inch above her head. Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes.
"Bastard" Temari growled.
"Your name?" Naruto said, his grin still in place.
"Temari," she spat her name at him, like it was a curse.
Naruto considered this for a moment, and then nodded before turning and walking into the woods.
"Don't go anywhere Temari-san!" He called over his shoulder.
Once he was out of her line of sight, Naruto collapsed against a tree. He had never, in all his years as a shinobi, been the one in control; he had always been someone's subordinate. For he first time ever, he was calling the shots and it scared him senseless.
He knew the 'act like Kisame' trick wouldn't hold up for long, he wasn't that good at being mean. And anyway, the girl had already seen too much of him for releasing her to be an option, so he would have to keep her nearby until he thought of something else.
Naruto resisted the urge to start cursing again.
Now alone, Temari took time to more carefully examine her position. She was sitting on the ground with her back against a tree and her hands were bound behind her. She noticed a moment later that her hair was loose, and pondered this before she tried to move her hands again.
The bastard had bound her with her own hair ties.
Her fan was also nowhere in sight, something that bothered her greatly as she was almost useless in a fight without it.
Just as quickly as he had left, the bastard (as she now referred to him) walked back into her line of sight.
Temari decided that she should start the conversation this time.
"I really hate you," she said, using her most menacing tone.
To her astonishment and indignation, the bastard started to laugh at her.
30 seconds later, he was still laughing and Temari was thinking he'd maybe lost his mind when he finally calmed down and managed to respond.
"YOU hate me?" Naruto said between giggles, "Listen, little girl, there are a very large number of people in this world who hate me, and pretty much all of them are more frightening than you. Hell, I'm more afraid of my sword than I am of you."
It was a minor point that Naruto was actually 3 years younger than the sand-nin, but she didn't need to know that.
Naruto suddenly became serious, "But all that is really unimportant. What is important is that right now, you are in my control, and you are also very pissed off about it."
Not getting any feedback, Naruto continued on, "I'm going to give you a hypothetical situation, and you need to tell me what you'd do, agreed?"
Temari glared. Naruto took that as a yes.
"You," he said, "are a missing-nin, one who has protected their identity so well, there are 3 people in the world who know who you are. Then one day, an enemy sees you, someone who could identify you. Normally you'd kill them, but something is preventing you from doing so. What options are left over?"
Temari had long since figured out where this was going, and didn't like the answer she was coming to.
Seeing she understood his point either way, approached her while continuing to speak.
"So as you can see, there's no point in being angry at me since I have no more control of this situation than you do, I can't kill you and I can't let you go, so now that we understand each other…" he cut through her bindings.
Within half a second, Temari had a hidden kunai in her hand and was getting ready to stab.
A half second later, she was on the ground, her arm twisted around backwards and the kunai now pointed at the back of her neck.
"Ne Temari-san, we will probably have to put up with each other for a while, so please don't do that." Naruto said while removing his sword from his back and placing it next to her, "I need to go hunt for something to eat, you may move 20 feet in any direction, but no further, and must always have this sword right next to you."
He then released her arm and casually walked off into the forest.
As was expected, within moments he felt the sword sending him an image of Temari getting ready to run, so Naruto sent back an image of Temari restrained by fox claws, along with what remained of his chakra.
Temari almost screamed again. When she was about to run, the sword grew clawed arms and grabbed hold of her.
Naruto walked back into the clearing, "one more thing Temari-san, the sword is intelligent," he paused, "but I see you've already learned that." He again walked into the forest.
Temari lay on the forest floor staring at the darkening sky, her arms stretched out and the sword lying silently next to her.
"You know," she said to it, "I've always thought of myself as somewhat of an authority on weird homicidal shinobi, but this guy is something else."
She sighed, "I mean, 24 hours ago I was preparing for a minor role in an invasion, now, my team is probably dead, I'm in a forest somewhere, prisoner of a demon-eyed boy who manages to be polite and terrifying at the same time, and being guarded by a sword!"
Amazingly, the sword remained silent.
"Its like I'm living a twisted nightmare." Temari rested a hand on her forehead as she felt a breeze, but suddenly jumped upright as she heard a voice behind her.
"Is it really that bad? I mean, I know the 'slitted red eyes' thing throws people off but I think 'terrifying' is a little strong. Aaaannnnnd", he said, drawing the word out, "I'll have you know that not a single one of your minions is dead, though I did cripple the blond one…"
Temari glared yet again as Naruto grinned at her.
"So what are we having to eat exactly?" Temari asked annoyedly, she really was hungry.
"One dead rabbit and one box of Double Chocolate Pocky" Naruto said as he grinned wider and held out both hands.
Temari just hung her head. The boy was crazy. He had to be. She would laugh herself silly at him if he couldn't kick her ass so efficiently. Come to think of it, even his sword had immobilized her without much effort. She wasn't even as strong as his weapon!
It was these types of uplifting thoughts that occupied Temari while Naruto set up a fire and started to cook the rabbit.
Food was eaten quickly and both were tired so going to sleep early was the first thing they agreed on all day. Temari had the sword next to her 'keeping watch' as she insisted Naruto stay a decent distance away even though they were just lying on the ground with their clothes on.
They both soon started to drift, but Temari regained her senses enough to ask the drowsy Naruto a question.
"In that hypothetical situation we talked about, why can't I kill the one who saw me?"
He looked over at her, and for one second, she saw something hidden within his eyes.
It was gone in the next moment and he smirked at her, "that's for me to know and you to go crazy wondering about."
It was an answer typical of him, but Temari was awake for another half hour wondering about that momentary flicker of depth.
The morning after the invasion, Tsunade went outside to watch the sun rise. She had been working all night, but their casualties had been far lower than expected.
Gaara was already outside, he to had been awake all night, but it was normal for him. The two stood silently and watched the first rays of light peak over the horizon.
Gaara started to speak hesitantly, "Hokage-sama…I have a…confession to make"
Tsunade didn't even turn her head as she spoke, "Naruto's alive, isn't he?'
Gaara nodded.
Tsunade felt her hands close into fists. She knew she couldn't fault Gaara, Naruto had been the one to make the choice to leave.
She felt blood run out of her hands as her nails dug holes in her skin. Naruto had been here, in this very village.
She hoped he had gotten out before he invasion, but couldn't even imagine what would have brought him here in the first place. Either way, she had no choice in what she was about to do.
She purposefully strode all the way to where she knew Shizune would be planning diplomatic meetings for when they arrived back in Konoha. Tsunade didn't let herself falter, even once.
She interrupted her assistant in the middle of writing a scroll to be sent to the various countries informing them of the sounds defeat.
"Shizune," she said, fighting to keep her voice from breaking, "as of right now, Uzumaki Naruto is hereby registered as an A-class missing-nin, location unknown. Inform the hunters."
Tsunade spun, ignoring the shocked look she was getting, and walked out, fighting her tears.
Oblivious to his plight, the newly official missing-nin was just waking up, feeling extremely refreshed. A night's sleep did wonders for his chakra supply.
He glanced over at Temari and confirmed she was still asleep before taking a moment to think.
At this point, he had two directions he could travel in, East or West. West would take him almost directly to hidden waterfall, but he would still be right above fire country. East was a long trip, but would take him to hidden cloud, much farther away from and an enemy of hidden leaf.
East it was. He needed time to decide what to do with the troublesome sand-nin before he started looking actively for missions, and he had enough money to last a while, though he had lost his extra clothing.
Naruto sighed as Temari started to stir. He really wished Itachi were here, his Sharingan could just awe the girl with their coolness and then she would do whatever she was told. That was one trick the Uchiha had never taught him.
He felt a tug in his mind, and unconsciously gave a bit of chakra. He immediately heard a shout behind him and spun around to see Temari glaring at Seirei Kirite. She turned to Naruto looking livid.
"Your sword just groped me!"
"What…?"
Temari was raging "A glowing red claw just grabbed my ass!"
Naruto looked at her skeptically, but then he started to get a feeling of satisfaction from Kyuubi.
Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose…he really didn't need this first thing in the morning.
"Ok, you," he pointed to the sword, speaking out loud for Temari's benefit, "no manifesting unless there's a reason. And you", he pointed at Temari, "don't give him a reason."
Temari looked indignant and the sword was oozing smugness.
Seeing as both apparently understood, Naruto continued.
"We're heading east as of now. We have no supplies and it's at least a day and a half to the nearest village. Temari, you are to keep the sword on your back at all times, and must always be within 30 feet of me, otherwise, I'll have you restrained and carry you."
Temari suddenly had the feeling that the sword was leering at her; she managed to look furious and slightly embarrassed at the same time.
"Fine," she muttered, "but I need something to tie my hair up with."
"Why?" Naruto immediately asked.
"Two reasons," she said annoyedly, "it falls in my face, making it hard to see and looks stupid."
Naruto pondered this for a moment, "Speaking as someone who has spent his life around whiny girls who spend all say on their appearance, your hair looks fine, and I'm the only one who can see it anyway. But if your having trouble seeing, there's always the option of being carried…"
"I'll be fine," she growled.
They were soon moving through the forest at a fast pace, Temari wondering the whole time whether the first part of the bastard's last comment had been a compliment or insult.
The news that Naruto had been registered as a Nukenin spread like wildfire through the Leaf camp.
It was quickly the most popular topic of gossip in camp, a great number of shinobi were already pushing to have a special squad of hunter-nin devoted just to killing the fox boy.
Tsunade had known this would happen, but she also knew she couldn't allow her personal feelings to get in the way of what had to be done.
She felt a presence behind her and turned to see Umino Iruka standing nervously by the door of her tent. She gestured for him to enter, and he did, bowing quickly.
"Hokage-sama, I've been hearing some," the brown haired chuunin paused, "unsettling rumors around camp and wanted to confirm them with you. Is it true that you registered Naruto as a missing-nin?"
Tsunade nodded, "It now appears that he faked his own death to cover his…betrayal." She finished sadly.
Iruka looked at the ground sadly, "In that case, Hokage-sama, there's something I'd like to give you. I want you to seriously consider it, please." He handed her a piece of paper before running out of the tent.
Tsunade looked at what he had given her and her eyes widened.
It was an application to join the hunter-nin.
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Authors Notes: No killing in this chapter, but I rather like it.
Next Chapter: Naruto and Kyuubi play chess, Temari takes a bath with Seirei Kirite, and Shikamaru wakes up.
Translation Notes:
Kirigakure no Jutsu – Hidden Mist Technique
Nukenin – Missing-nin
Fushichou – Phoenix
Seirei Kirite – spirit cutter