Grace
Standard Disclaimer and Note still apply.
Thank you all very much for your reviews!
A/N: just to let you know, there is a bit more action in this, but you'll have to decide that for your-selves. Also! Erm, I think I know what my next fanfiction(s) are going to be about, I just need indefinite inspiration to write aside from free time XD;
Warning: eh, some death in this chapter, as well as a mention of the female body. Don't worry, nothing too harmful.
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The apartment was nice looking, his and Jiraiya's came with a small kitchen, living room, 2 bedrooms and one bathroom. It was the fact that it had one bathroom that Naruto complained about.
"What was he thinking! Only one bathroom!" he glared at Jiraiya, fully blaming him for it, while Jiraiya glared back. Naruto turned away and grumbled to him-self; something about old men and hot water before heading back into their shared kitchen and ruffling through the cabinets for food.
Nothing but fruits and vegetables in the fridge, and crackers in the cabinets; Naruto's eye twitched at this. No. Ramen. He sighed; he really, really, really wanted Ramen. Living on the road Sakura had destroyed all his Ramen stash in a fit of anger at him. Hence he hadn't had the delicious dish of life in quite some time.
"Whats wrong kid?" interrupted a voice from his morose thoughts of missing Ramen. Naruto looked at him with his 'pity-me' pathetic face.
"No Ramen! Can you believe it! It's horrible!" He exclaimed flapping his arms to induce how 'horrible' it was. He pouted cutely to Jiraiya who had this amused look on his face.
"Sorry kid, can't help you there, I've got work to do." And with that the Sanin turned to leave. Completely missing Naruto's evil grin plastered on his face.
"If you buy me 3 bowls of ramen I won't tell Tsunade that you were pe-" he was abruptly cut off by Jiraiya's hand. He looked horrified by what Naruto had said.
"Shhhhh! What if she hears you!" a split second of thought would have saved Jiraiya from revealing that had indeed been his intention. His face flattened into a frown. He stared at Naruto, weighting his options before huffing and marching, like a 3 year old having a tantrum, out the door.
"Well, are you coming or not?" he called out irritably. Naruto merely chuckled as he followed. Jiraiya was really easy to manipulate sometimes.
When they arrived at Ichiraku's, Naruto made sure to have Jiraiya pre-pay for his meals before leaving, that way he couldn't dump the bill on Naruto 'accidentally.' By this time in Naruto's life, he had long since learned to eat slowly, and so by the time Jiraiya had a bit of Sake and left, Naruto was still finishing his first bowl.
He was in the middle of eating his second when Sakura arrived. She sat down wordlessly and ordered her own bowl. For awhile neither of them spoke.
"Hey." She said at last, watching him as he finished his bowl and ordered his third. Sakura's was still coming. Naruto looked at her from the corner of his eye, before turning his body to face her fully.
"Something's bothering you." He stated as a mater-of-fact. She slumped in her seat.
"Its Sasu. I… I'm worried about him, that's all." She admitted while Naruto looked pensively downward. He hummed at her use of their partial names.
"Me too. God knows how much the mind can actually take, ya know?" This seemed to make Sakura deflate even more at that thought. Naruto smiled.
"Demo, Sasu is strong. He's made mistakes in the past and he's learned from them. Sasu isn't about to turn down a path he's walked before if he doesn't want to." He told her brightly. But Sakura still looked down.
"But… its not that. I'm worried that with these constant reminders of his past, he'll eventually snap again." At this Naruto frowned. He was worried about that too. It took a moment for it to click in his mind on just what those reminders were. He sighed, taking a bite of his third ramen while Sakura dug into hers.
"Relatively speaking, Sakura-chan, He only has to deal with one reminder, and I'll be dealing with the others. If it gets to be too much, we'll send him out on a mission to cool down, ne? Besides, I trust him." Sakura visibly started at the last thing Naruto said. She remembered the time of Sasuke's betrayel and couldn't help but be awed by Naruto proclamation (even though he had said it before). For him to trust someone like that after so much pain being alone and then betrayed… he really was something special.
"I'll try to have more faith in him." She muttered. She trusted Sasuke as well. But how long could he last, hiding all of his emotions?
"You still live at the same pace, right?" Naruto asked, drowning his bowl at the same time as Sakura. She answered his question on Autopilot.
"Hai." She was still thinking, missing Naruto's grin.
"Then I'll walk you home." he told her, not asked, told her. She glared at him before giving up. Arguing with Naruto was utterly pointless at times. And even though she could take care of herself, Naruto just couldn't be swayed sometimes.
They walked in silence down the streets. It was still sunny outside, only into mid-day so far, and already so much had happened to make it seem like the day was over. Sakura's eyes were glued to the ground before her feet as she walked, while Naruto's eyes were skyward.
"Storm clouds." He muttered under his breath, this being the only thing he said on their trek into the living quarters of Konoha. It was a peaceful walk, unstrained by tension, even if Sakura was depressed. At the Haruno residence, They both stopped, neither one changing the position of their heads.
"Sakura-chan." Naruto spoke up, eyes still a fixated on the sky.
"Hm?" she looked at him. His eyes were so blue, so expressive that when the way he was looking upward, he appeared almost mystical.
"We are a team. Where one goes, the others will follow. We as a team have suffered and will continue to do so for to suffer is to live as a part of a whole. I won't let bad things happen to my family." There was that determined look in his eyes when they descended onto her face; the same one that encouraged his allies, and frightened his enemies. "That's a promise."
'oh Naruto…' Sakura thought, rubbing away the tears that threatened to fall and hugged him tightly and briefly before fleeing into her house with a somewhat evil smirk on, leaving behind a red faced and nose bleeding Naruto on the sidewalk. He coughed. Right, now… time for a nap. Cleaning the blood off his face, he left for his apartment.
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Naruto slowly opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He started to dim his chakra to resemble that of a person still sleeing before getting up from his bed and putting on his clothing. He paused, using his senses to make sure all 3 Sanin were still asleep before creating 3 shadow clones. One took up his pj's and put them on, takeing up his position on the bed. The real Naruto opened his window and motioned for the other 2 to follow him. Once they were out the two clones disappeared into the night, going to their destinations.
One left to Sakura's house, while the other clone left to the Uchiha compound. The real Naruto jumped away, heading towards the large Hokage monument. He stayed on Yondaime's head and in the shadows created by Sandaime's head. Here no one would see him, and due to his Chakra control, no one would sense him. He activated a jutsu on his eyes that Kyuubi had taught him, and suddenly the world was illuminated by dim lights. His own Chakra was serving as a special version of night vision. It was a nifty trait for someone who keeps night watch.
He would stay like this the entire night, up until just before dawn where he would return to his apartment for a quick shower and disperse his clones. After getting dressed again, Naruto headed to the missions Burro. He knew that he was early for it, but he didn't care. Her merely took a seat on the ground and promptly fell asleep, using the time to nap and recovering his spent chakra from the night.
Some interminably amount of time later; someone was poking and stretching his cheeks as if they were being played with. Groggily he started to wake.
"whaaaaaaaaaaat" he whined, opening one eye to stare into the only eye visible of Hatake Kakashi. He was surprised to note that Kakashi had donned a Jounin uniform, not his usual ANBU uniform.
"Ah! Gomen, Gomen. This old lady needed help crossing the street when-" Same old Kakashi...
"Heh, not a problem." This surprised the Copy-nin, everyone hated his lateness. "How late are you?"
"Oooh? 2 hours."
"Not 3? Wow, that's gotta be some kind of new record." Even Kakashi was amused by the kid who in a few years would be his student.
"Anyways, we have 2 missions, one C rank and one B rank" Kakashi spoke up, offering his hand to Naruto who took it and hoisted himself off the ground. Naruto nodded and popped his back while stretching. Urk.
"What are they?"
"an escorting mission to Suna, ande a rescue mission in Wave."
"Sounds easy, lets go!" and he walked out, letting Kakashi keep up with his swift strides.
"I assume we're just escorting a civilian right? And the kidnapping, we'll be faceing Rogues most likely, correct?" Kakashi nodded.
"Hai."
"Who are we escorting?"
"A young girl"
"Where is she?"
"Waiting outside."
"Cool." They walked outside of the complex to see a somewhat shy and timid young woman with purple hair waiting for them.
"I found my comrade-" this earned him a dirty look from the Blond, as well as an odd feeling of being called a comrade. He wasn't really much of one.
It turned out the girls name was Naomi and the trip to Suna was uneventful, except for that time when a drunk man woke up and thought they were attack him, when it fact they were rolling him to the side of the road and out of harms way.
However, the mission in wave was a bit more exciting. In fact, it was a hell of a lot more exciting. It took Kakashi and Naruto until nearly dusk to find the location of the kidnapped child, but what they never expected was for Cloud to be involved.
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"Aa, Hokage-sama, did you give any missions to Naruto today?" Sakura asked sweetly to the ageing man at the Burro.
"Hai, is there something wrong?"
"Iie, I was just wondering" and with that the girl left.
Ouside Sakura met up with the waiting Sasuke and they walked companionably for a few moments before she spoke up.
"he went without us, again. So, feel like spareing against me instead?" she grinned, Sasuke looked alarmed.
"Only if you don't use that monstrous strength of yours…"
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Naruto's hand darted out and yanked Kakashi back. Nothing happened around them yet he looked deadly serious. Kakashi looked visibly annoyed until Naruto pointed to something on the tree he had been about to land on. There on the tree was an explosive note. Kakashi's visible eye widened. How had he not seen that?
"Normal Bandits wouldn't know how, or take the time to se up a trap. They don't have enough sense for it, this marks someone with a ninja background. Either missing or hired." Naruto told him, barely moving his mouth. Since Kakashi didn't know team 7's unique hand code yet, it was all he could do without giving away their positions with loud noise.
"Don't use fire jutsu, this place is too heavily forested." He added as an afterthought. Kakashi nodded, thinking. Naruto normally would have said more or interrupted needlessly, but instead he waited. Kakashi was the leader of this mission, technically, so Naruto would leave the decisions to him.
"I'll deal with them, you get the captive." Naruto's eyebrow rose at this. Say what? Mentally he sighed; it seemed that Kakashi was still in ANBU mode after all.
"Hai." Naruto moved around the trap and closer to the camp. He waited for Kakashi's signal to infiltrate as he watched the 4 guard ninja's become increasingly aware that something wasn't right. Seconds later Kakashi fired 4 shuriken out of the bushes, 2 were deflected while the other 2 jumped back. From their actions alone, Naruto could tell they were Ninja's. High Chuunin, possibly Jounin level, Kakashi could handle them for awhile, even with his experience, he was outnumbered. So Naruto had to make it quick.
"Suiton, Suishouha." Naruto distinctly heard Kakashi say, as a great vat of water suddenly appeared and slammed into his opponents. Naruto noticed it was takeing them away from the tent so Naruto performed a few seals and became almost entirely invisible. He slipped into the tent unnoticed while Kakashi lured the guards away, but not too far as to arouse suspicion. These Ninja's weren't too smart to not realize Kakashi was a diversion.
Looking around, Naruto calmly took notice of his surroundings. The girl was tied up, on the ground. She looked around 10, possibly 12. Therefore, he deducted that she must have a bloodline or a rich family to warrant attention. Dimly aware of the sounds of fighting behind him, Naruto assessed his opponent. Limiting his chakra to almost non-existent, the Chuunin had yet to even sense him. But the Guard was fully aware that something was going on. Naruto mentally sighed, it would have been better if he had left to help his friends, not stay to guard the girl.
He didn't want to frighten the girl and thus had to make her unconscious. Naruto thought for a moment, before coming up with the perfect way. Forming hand-seals while keeping his chakra low, he managed to pull off a sleep genjutsu. Naruto wasn't disappointed as the girl knocked out in seconds while the Guard let lose a curse and dispelled the genjutsu. However, said guard should have been more careful, for while his hands were occupied with the seal, Naruto's Kunai had left his hand.
By then it was too late, his Kunai was already lodged between the man's head. Naruto didn't want to think about it, he couldn't think about it. Gently unravelling the girls bonds, he hoisted her carefully over his shoulder. Again, forming the necessary seals he used the body-flicker technique to leave the area. Good timing as well, seeing as a millisecond after he left a tree trunk smash the tent to smithereens.
Once he was far enough away, sure she wouldn't wake up, and sure she was safe where she was, Naruto headed back to the scene. He had to aid Kakashi and even the odds a bit more.
When he arrived, he saw that one had already been brought down by Kakashi, looked to have been severed at the waist by a cleverly laid out Raikiri. Naruto continued on and waited for his 'moment to make an entrance.' He saw it when someone fired a fireball at Kakashi. Not hesitating for a moment, Naruto jumped in. his hands became a blur as he called out.
"Doton! Doro Gaeshi!" and slammed his palms onto the ground, causing a wall of earth to rise up as the fireball struck. Kakashi was behind him, looking quite relieved at Naruto's arrival.
"heh, looks like you need a hand. I'd say this turned 'A' rank, what about you?" Naruto Fox like grin spread across his face. "You take the red head; leave the other two to me." Kakashi smiled and nodded. Naruto had that type of charisma.
"Yush! Lets go!" good timing, as the earth wall Naruto was resurrected began to crumble and then fall. Two of Konoha's finest (one from the future) jumped apart to peruse their targets. These were cloud nins, as the Forehead protectors proudly proclaimed, thus they had to be eliminated as a threat.
As Naruto went, he formed several eye-blurring seals before landing in front of his two opponents. However, the moment he landed he sunk into the earth this gave off the illusion that he had placed a genjutsu on the ground and that he was hiding, however, Naruto actually was in the ground, and his opponents didn't know this.
Naruto had a kunai in hand, and was waiting beneath them for one to come within his range, once they did, Naruto's hand materialized out of the earth and struck. His kunai slashed across the women's ankles and cleanly cut through her Achilles tendons, effectively taking her out of the fight, for the moment. However this move sacrificed his position thus when Naruto popped out of his hiding spot, only sharp reflexives kept him from the paralyzing blow to his ribs.
The man aimed to punch him in the head, which Naruto dodged in favour of moving in and elbowing the man's nose. Naruto then back flipped several times to create distance between them. The man charged at him, drawing Shuriken and firing, Naruto dodged those too He foresaw what the man was going for and formed the necessary seals to counter.
"Ninpou, Hari Jizou" he spoke, his blond hair growing at a vast pace to surround his body, becoming a shield of spikes. His opponent was too far into his second attempt at a crippling punch to pull back and he impaled himself on Naruto's hair. Howling in pain the man failed to realize he had given Naruto another opportunity to strike. Aware now, of a building Chakra to his left where the temporarily out of commission women was, Naruto had to think fast.
"Doton! Doryuu Taiga!" he shouted, creating a mudslide. The women's jutsu, whatever she was going to pull, was cut off as her comrade slammed into her. The mudslide took them ever further and into a tree trunk, pinning them. Naruto didn't give them a chance to think.
"Doton! Doryuudan!" A dragon head of mud appeared at his side, and opened his giant mussel, jutting out spikes of mud that the duo frantically tried to dodge but it was futile. Though mud wasn't considered much of a threat, it was with shuriken and Kunai embedded in it. Eventually, they died of blood loss and fatal wounds, hunched over at the base of the tree. Naruto couldn't look. His hands were shaking.
To this day, he could never get used to killing. He despised it, so when Kakashi's Chakra signature appeared on his side with a friendly hand on his shoulder, Naruto was thankful for the gesture, and the excuse not to think about it.
"C'mon, she's this way." They still had a job to complete.
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"When do you think he'll come back?"
"aaahh.. I dunno." They sighed. Without Naruto to pester, and without his cheerful disposition, life was rather dull for the rest of team 7 of the future. Sakura and Sasuke had only been training lightly for the entire day. They had a few cuts and many bruises to sport for it. At least, for them it was light training.
Out of the corner of Sasuke's eye, he spotted a slightly tipsy Jiraiya walking towards the bathhouses. He nudged Sakura.
"Maybe he knows." Her eyes lit up and the both ran towards the Sanin. They had heard from Sandaime that Naruto was staying in the same apartment as the Sanin, frankly, they pitied Naruto for that, while they could hardly stand one, let alone all 3.
"Jiraiya-sama, Jiraiya-sama!" they called out. Unfortunately, asking Jiraiya probably wasn't the best thing in the world, he was after all, a pervert. And when that Sanin saw a young women dressed in red with her... -ahem- appendages 'bouncing' he got a bloody nose.
"Ohohohohoho, seems I'm famous amongst the young! Ohohohohoh" he laughed in a high-pitched voice. He didn't even seem to see Sasuke with her. They stared at him with utter shame and disbelief.
"um…."
"Oh oh oh oh, wanna know a seeeecret." Even Naruto was better than a perverted drunk old man.
"Have you seen Naruto yet?" Sasuke decided to ask, annoyed that his presence was ignored, and even more annoyed at the fact that Jiraiya seemed to be hitting on his team-mate. So he tossed him his most menacing Uchiha glare, which seemed to sober him up nice and good. Hiraiya blinked and pondered, as if trying to pull of that 'wise man' look Sarutobi always managed.
"No, try at our apartment."
"Where is your apartment, Jiraiya-sama" Sakura asked in a fake sweet voice. Jiraiya's other nostril trailed a bit of blood. You'd think by now he would have remembered who she was. But no, he's a baka, through and through.
"B district." He said, with that look that made women ill to see.
"Thanks." Sasuke blurted and grabbed Sakuras arm and ran for it. Jiriaya was just plain creepy. However, to pull a prank on him…
"Oh! And good luck peeping on Tsunade-sama!" Sasuke called out, causing Sakura to snicker evilly at the horrified look on Jiraiya's face followed by the loud shout of…
"JIRIAYA!" Louder, Tsunade, I don't think people 50 miles away heard you. Sakura thought.
After calming down from their laughter, they headed towards Naruto's new apartment. After diligently making sure Orochimaru wasn't around, they knocked on Naruto's door. After hearing the muffled 'enter!' they came in, only to stop in their tracks.
There was a sight they thought they would never see again. There was Naruto, in only his boxers, cleaning the dried blood off his weapons. But it wasn't this sight that startled them so much (although Naruto in his boxers WAS rather frightening). No, it was the fact that Naruto was crying.
"Hey."